Odium

This seems like a great idea for an update. It is a new mechanic, which already puts it way ahead of the pack imo. But beyond that it promotes engagement with events and seems very well balanced. There are a couple bonuses I need to mull over to decide how I feel about them, but overall nothing that sticks out like a sore thumb. I think there is also enough versatility to allow for a great deal of different builds and play styles. This is an update that provides interaction with the game, flavor for the nation (in this nation sim), and provides some mechanical benefits that can be widely used and explored. Thanks for the novel and well thought out suggestion Sketchy. I hope it is well considered. The only thing I am a bit confused on is the operational efficiency section on page 10. Perhaps after 8 hours of sleep I could make sense of the equation but right now it is not coming to me XD, mind giving a bit further explanation on that?

Suggestion 1: I like it, I think the hard numbers may need to be tweaked slightly, but overall its a good idea Suggestion 3: Silly. Really the only reason to change the unit count per building is giving a small buff to normal whales, a bigger buff to all, what, 5? whales that raid. The downside is that it makes the math more complicated. In the end it doesn't super matter, I agree, but it seems like we could change cost or heck even score per unit and make for a more balanced update with fewer consequences. (Also side note this will screw up every MAer that has grown any sort of instincts for the game for a good month. Not the end of the world but I think given all other things unequal we should avoid it). Suggestion 2: I think the idea has some theoretical merit, but anything close to the current proposal will cause small alliances to be run out of the game. Sketchy said that it would be more profitable to just have a quick little war and peace out, but as someone in a war right now you are just wrong, sorry. We are making roughly the same amount we are at peace, but since we are at war if our bonus ever got to low I just announce "round of deccs everyone" we all get ourselves a handful of wars before eventually going back to peace having taken a couple 10s of millions of damage because our enemy is already so weak. If we were, however, to take some of the suggestions in the thread like activity and damage thresholds we push so hard into forcing wars that it kinda hollows out the politics of the game. Forget war reasons based on player actions, get excited for 10 forum posts a year saying "srry, need the econ." That shift will cause people to leave the game. As someone who has been in 4 wars over the last 9 months, it is just plain unpleasant, and I say that as an MAer, so this should be my time to bask in the sun lol. So if someone sees an alliance that they consider weak or have a grudge with, can you guess who is gonna be lined up for wars? It is going to be a round robin of the top 10 AAs dragging one top 30 AA or smaller sphere every 4-5 months. The activity one actually encourages inactivity! Just keep some folks around to wipe raiders and make it known that all your inactives are happy to pop on and defend themselves from raids and the "penalty" for inactivity from raiding is diminished, and your AA has a 40% inactivity rate that is no good to be hit by another sphere to reset them, win win for everyone involved, except the raiders and the game as a whole ofc. The damage suggestion is probably the best of the bunch I guess? But even that, it is going to be gamified to hell and back. I need to do 10m damage? Great. Im going to 0 the enemy, do 10m damage then expire the war so my buddies can decc as soon as possible and get their 10m in. All in all I don't mind incentivizing wars, I think that could be healthy for the game. But at some point you are forgetting the forest for the trees. You can say this is a war update, because it is, but the problem with all wars in this game for as long as I have been here is that they are effectively a way to pass the time. There is not a concrete or permanent benefit to having them (besides relative growth which... fine, makes AA Econ heads giddy I suppose). This does not change that. Once we get so meta focused why even have the paint job of a nat sim? Just call it "war simulator" and remove the policies page, and the little nation quirks like approval rating and those other cosmetic things that should in now way be cosmetic if this game did what it says on the tin. We have to look beyond just the war part of the game to incentivize war. We do that in theory but not in practice here. We try to effect econ and make it harder to grow without war, but there is nothing interesting here. No mechanic, not even an interesting way of implementing stagnation. So overall, I think this idea needs fundamentally reworked before it can ever be considered a worthwhile update in my opinion

Each wind power plant only powers 250 infrastructure! So if you have 5 of them you can power a city with a max of 1250 infrastructure. If you have even as much as 1 infrastructure in your city more than your power can support the whole thing will be unpowered. Your city has 1510. The mines you have produce resources but not power. My suggestion is to destroy your wind turbines and build 1 nuclear power plant! Each nuclear power plant can power up to 2000 infrastructure. Buy some uranium on the world market to power that plant and you should be good to go!

For Rose and Gardening Grandmas!

Lot of questions for an anarchist… But really congrats Diamond and co! I look forward to working with all of you!

I see where you are coming from but I do disagree. I think the tactic will be to probably go planes > ships > then grounds rather than ships > planes > grounds. This is because ships are still not a major threat to the other nation, just a frustration that could potentially flip very close wars. In those very close wars the planes are still your biggest concern. The most interesting thing I can see this doing is allowing nations that have low planes but high grounds to make comebacks over enemies (use the ships to knock out AS then switch to grounds and flatten the enemy before they can reestablish it). That new tactic makes me excited. I do agree with Penguin though, I think to blockade you should have to target ships or infra, allowing blockading and removal of AS or GC seems a bit overpowered. I also think that Ship v Ships kill too few ships of the enemy. Currently I think I would still tell people to do air v ships if at all possible, which feels backwards. I do agree with points 3, 4, and 5 here though, most definitely. The Research page needs a polish but I like the general format, if you put every type of research on its own page I have to load, I will be very sad lol. As to point 2 I am split to be honest. I think it could be a very interesting tactic for folks that are trying to get an edge over the enemy especially as low level raiders (eg you sell off your research, declare, then buy 3-4 levels and build over whoever you decced on that doesn't have the same resources. It is kind of a determination of how they want these researches to affect people imo, and I do think in the end Sketchy will be proven right here.

You do not know what you truly face... Man I do not read the forums often enough 😄 thanks! I may have to use that one sometime soon. Definitely saved. For now I have been using this one.

No spoilers, read the books 😂

After the Scouring of Ashyn, when these so called so called 'protectors' followed their passion instead of their meaningless oaths. They will soon learn the error of their ways. The Everstorm Comes. Also good luck and stuff. All that jazz 😄

That looks fun! Huge cosmere buff as I am sure you can tell from the name lol. Definitely stealing all those recipes to try out, seems like an awesome event to celebrate the best series ever getting its 5th installment! Life Before Death and all of that jazz 😄

I mean you are absolutely right. And lets do the math. To get an additional 300 planes you need to build 4 cities. That will be up to c56 for you from c52 which will cost 25,726,470,000 provided you take advantage of all of the bonuses possible. This also gives you the advantage of increasing your rebuy rate. For you the bonus would only be 7% as well, as you have more planes to begin with. To buy all of these upgrades you would spend 70b and not get all of the other benefits a city offers. My advice? Buy that city and ignore the research (if it comes out in this form).

The research seems interesting, but I think it will end up settling at a c10-c19 range as the only place it is useful for the average player. Whales at this point are around c45 give or take. They have a max of 3375 planes already, do we think that an 8% difference from max at the smallest whale size (meaning the largest percent difference) is going to be worth potentially billions? There is also the hard fact that any flat bonus or change will be abused at the c1-c9 level. That is why everything in the game is based on percentile changes. You underestimate the holdings of the smaller raiders/pirates. A member of Rose (with strict raiding guidelines) was making 300m a week raiding, which means raiding AAs will be making even more a week. If I was going to be an active, c3 raider (like the fine folks at Samurai specialize in, props to them) I would push my money hard into those cap upgrades then absolutely dominate the lower tier with the bonuses. Another point, you said you are trying to avoid there being a meta. I can already tell you the meta. Spend the first 20 on plane cap upgrades, then ground cap, then plane cost reduction, then ground cost reduction, then move onto ship upgrades. Easy. I would probably start around c10 but econ heads can give a better idea where we would have the best cost/reward. I do actually really like the beige buff. It may make for more competitive GWs or at the very least extend the contested phase from 24hrs to 36hrs. I would agree it is a bit underpowered but I would be careful to avoid overswinging. Especially into buffs while in other wars. If you add buffs that can be used while at war with other nations you incentivize intentionally losing wars to win others, which will immediately become pirate meta.

Definitely agree, this is a ton of fun. Seems like a win win. We all get a laugh and Arrgh gets their coffers filled without even lifting a finger before the fireworks start flying!

The Emperor is dead retired! Long live the Emperor!

I know I am late to the party but hey I figured I would say my peace (piece? I have never seen that saying spelled out before). I logged into my account here for the first time in 3 years to comment on this idea. I understand the point I really do. But there some some fundamental problems here, many of which have been addressed. I would consider myself an anti-raider. I find them annoying and would like if they would stop thank you very much. I think a lot of people here would get on the "please don't raid me and my friends" train (though a lot of us will then turn around and raid you and your friends, including myself lol). But at the same time this change would both make raiding harder for smaller nations and those in micros AND more annoying for people in large alliances. It is seriously one of the few ways I could think of addressing this problem that would make everyone more angry over it. To begin with smaller nation will end up choosing between raiding 9 people and getting curb stomped by their friends, or raiding 1 person at a time and slowing the game to a crawl. That seems like the most obvious problem with this. It does literally nothing to resolve the stated problem (ie. "We have a shortage of pancakes so I sent Bob to go mine rocks, I see no reason these things won't resolve each other"). Secondly as a member of a large alliance oh my god, the day I am told I need to find 9 nations to counter every raider that hits us is the day I resign from MA and likely the game as a whole. This incentives us to make even larger alliances to promote having enough people in range of EVERY POSSIBLE SCORE to have 9 good counters. That means we need 9 active, relatively milled and responsive people in a range of between 100%-133% of every single score in the game at every time of the day no less. That math is a pain but I can tell you it is a heck of a lot of people. Bottom line is I have to agree with Sketchy, this game has to decide if it is a group or individual sport. I think it is a group sport. But if we were playing football and at half time the ref blows the whistle and says from now one we are doing a 1 v 1 game with only the kickers I would expect everyone to be really annoyed. Even if it does make the single kicker who hasn't had any field time feel more included. I sincerely ask that this change is promptly tossed directly in the bin to never see the light of day again.