Anarchist Empire

Enjoy the war, not sure if it's unwilling to pay or they can't pay. Can't extract what they don't have, but enjoy blowing stuff up. CB makes sense.

You make it sound like coming back is a mistake. lol. We want them to though I think?

Do like this suggestion. (Don't want to get into arguing the stat benefits for each ones, but looks good overall.) Would be nice if stuff like this was implemented, rather than jacking up resource costs and deleting inactives were the main "updates" or "downgrades" being considered. Are good updates which get suggested, but seems like the best of them go nowhere. If this was good and went nowhere, the more recent 2 posted might go nowhere as well at least.

Resources are still going up in price and have been since I came back. Make things use more resources if you feel it's needed, but no need to delete the inactives to prove the obvious. Most of the resources are on inactives and not effecting the economy. (Unless these huge city nations are hoarding a ton of it to drive the price up; betting on you doing this change. They buy a billion Iron at 1.2k & 2.4k they double their profits. If it goes to 3.5k like lead is now, they more than triple it. Whether it's whales who have accumulated a ton betting to profit big on this or mostly inactive hardly makes a difference. Do the change or not without deleting inactives I say.) However if you do the change to make resources more expensive, smaller nations at least can extract some benefit from raid targets in their range with resources others can't reach. You delete that & you delete many of your players/members; as well as make this change much worse for smaller nations who could be raiding those inactives to try catching up. Even if this mostly just benefit the whales who have hoarded a ton of resources already, if you don't delete inactives won't be a complete bad thing for new players. Blew like $-69,723,264 in Keno already with these suggestions, almost seems to not matter to try & just bet on getting lucky; or not. However $1b max cap on Keno winning means you can't even get rich hitting the jackpot on that anymore.

If they don't suddenly delete all the inactives and make resources way more expensive, could raid inactives for some resourcese to sell for cash to try catching up. With what some are pushing, that might not last long & active raids are the way to go. I feel like these city projects hardly matter in comparison though. Stuff like Advanced Pirate Economy with the loot modifier optimized would be more exciting. Might as well, but don't really care that much about these.

Raid inactives for resources. They want to delete all the inactives, so those players don't come back & smaller nations have no benefit in being able to raid inactive nations to try catching up some? If they do that, guess will just need to see how long it lasts where raiding inactives can be profitable or all active raids is what to do.

Forgive me if I don't take the opinion of someone (1,918 Days Old) & 36 City Count seriously; when you post like this. (Yes, for you anything which benefits the lower tier is bad & you plan to log in constantly to make sure you keep your city count regardless; don't care if others are motivated to catch up. Probably.) Delete the competition & make it not even worth anyone trying to catch up in cities; then you can be King of your pile of nothing. Alex is the one who's opinion really matters. I think he cares about having a game with more people joining and investing time, rather than just trying to appeal to small group of core players; who have invested so many years in this game they will never leave & just try to be on top until it's dead. Alex has the most to gain or lose by doing good or bad suggestions. Your opinion doesn't matter, since you're opinion is just we don't care about each other's opinions. What Alex decides matters, not you. What you or anyone else thinks of my opinion doesn't matter, unless you can convince me with logic that I'm wrong. However you're not the Admin,, if Alex said that maybe I wouldn't bother with the sub forum. Other than that doesn't matter. I think he's well meaning in wanting to do updates, it's just not all ideas are good ideas. I think I'm right and he'll be able to see that. If not, not going to throw a fit. Just give the advice I think is best. Try breaking the game so new nations can't catch up & ton of other high city nations are deleted just for being inactive; I'll just consider your city count to be a freebie prestige award for playing this long rather than anything special. (Don't suddenly break the game and sure I could there much faster.) Deleting everyone's nation for being inactive a bit is pretty much saying, anytime they put into getting cities only matters as long as they stay consistently active. Server can't handle keeping accounts long. (I say it's worth a server upgrade over deleting inactives though.) Next City: $7m Not including resources, so I'm at the city count I want to be at right now. Money Looted: $111,652,608.24

You can say that, but unless my alliance told me enter for some reason and I agreed; don't think I would. Either I'd think I'll probably log in before it gets deleted, since usually don't plan I'm going to take a year off ahead. Either way, this is a politics and war game. Maybe we just all play how we want & endless city accumulation is only suited for with the most extreme long term uninterrupted dedication. Rest of us? We can fun without caring about the top tier and endlessly grinding their. Add in-game poker for a real in-game big improvement. Can use this game for a mix of browser distraction & spreading political ideas; since can buy credits with in-game money and promote whatever political ideas you want. I'd want to spread Libertarainism, etc. So game still is useful & I can deal with it if this happens. I just it's a bad idea much worse than the resource thing. This change would make me even more unlikely to be willing to take any loans (Or Grants, don't want them to waste money if I'm not sure this game is a life long commitment; always active)from my alliance to grow my city & figure better to stay low; focus on making our alliance as strong in my tier as I can. While it is also strong in the areas it specializes. So adapt. So ultimately do whatever, but this is worse than the resource suggestion on it's own. Just do that if you want. (Also I see some people got an achievement when this game passed CN in nation count, after this game stopped deleting nations. Do we want CN to pass us in nation count again?)

Most nations aren't thinking about that if a distraction from the game. Mostly alliances getting rolled to prevent more declares on them use that to escape. 2 Effects of this, one is you're doing so nations can be lost when someone checks back if they forget to do vacation mode. The other is you're trying to get rid of any advantage low city nations have in reaching potential targets, where maybe they can get 5k resources and have a chance of catching up. Neither I think is desirable. (Game isn't as exciting if I feel I need to take out a loan of billions to reach a high city count, rather than being able to earn it.) Only real reason to delete nation accounts is because it's a server issue & server can't handle the load. Think when this game first game out, nations would get deleted after short amount of time not active. (That was holding the game back, later when I checked it again that wasn't an issue. Now going back to that?) Let's say emergency situation, I need ot fly out of the county no notice; since friend flees to foreign county only I have contacts. So they need me and relatives need me, game would be last thing on my mind. I'd come back to it later when thinking about it if my nation wouldn't be deleted just because I don't play for a bit, like telling people stay constantly active or don't come back. Maybe if gone long enough, is time to say farewell for good. However I think that is a bad idea. Food consumption increase, resource increase? Those changes do them if you want, but don't delete nations. That was worst part of this suggestion, other things can put up with it. Barely use any uranium or food anyways. (The deletion thing reminds me of when this game was alpha and nations would just get deleted if you're inactive some, so don't play a little bit and no reason to look back.) If deleting the nations is to try proving whether resources should be increased in cost, just boost their value without doing the deletion thing. Friends I had like 2 years or so back, are they even active still some of them? If they come back would their nation still be here? I would hope there nation isn't deleted just because they went inactive some. No point telling them I think they should come back if I could get hold on discord if I know they've been deleted. So I can adapt to any of these changes, including whether I think my nation if permanent or not; assuming I don't break any rules & game is still running. Just less reason to aim high if it's highly expendable. (Honestly think if you want nations to spend money on this game for credits; don't threaten to delete their nations if they take some time off & aren't thinking about vacation mode.)

I think this is a terrible idea imo, if it takes years to get to City 30+, but just 100 days for all that to get deleted if not constantly playing; I'm not going to aim that high. Good thing these nations can still serve a purpose even inactive. (I'll play for fun still, but won't consider my nation long lasting if it gets deleted if I just don't log in for a while. Get the most out of the game as you can when you're feeling it.) Those really high city tier are only those playing many years almost non-stop without break than, if they do take a break; it's over for their city count. Real life happens. (I don't mind starting from scratch and aiming high, since so far I think if I do make a high city count nation; it won't be destroyed unless I want it to be and cause it to be somehow, Act of self destruction.) Now I'm motivated? Year from now will I be? If I take a break for a year, would I want a year of work climbing to 20+ cities to matter; if it ever was? Of course don't want it deleted.

Yeah, unless you guys stall out on cities. You'll be the ones to afford it more than nation just getting to 21. Opens the game to reaching higher city tiers. I don't have a strong opinion on it. If he makes it costs resources on addition to money to get from City 20-30, maybe he should make this light on the resource cost? Just try balancing things in a way where improves the game for those at the top & also motivates those at the bottom is what I think is should be done. (Make it worth keep climbing higher for those at the top, make it worth trying to climb higher for those not already there.) So more projects good, this is far enough off, wouldn't benefit me for ages anyways. Even if I get the 2 others & City 21, sure this will cost a lot also.

While your explanation seems reasonable at face value, two sides to every story. Could pretend I care more, but think the Aurora - Stark ODP is the only way this might effect me. Not going to be to be the war monger side, but guess we retain that option to defend Stark if they suddenly get attacked and that's about it. (Maybe negotiation can fix this? However feel I should have our allies backs, so won't say Stark is wrong or anything of the table defending them. I wouldn't mind a global war if this had the possibility to turn into one, feel I missed the last one. lol) Basically you could have also just made it out like they invested in a dead investment bank when it wasn't. I won't claim to know. (Can see why they'd expect their investment to be going up in value, when the bank is somehow valued at $18b & seems like they're making money.) Good luck getting it sorted if a clerical error.

These Projects to discount cities are expensive, if their price is to high and city number to close together; makes one wonder worth it if it costs a lot. The one at 11 Cities checks out to pay off at current prices by City 20. Not sure on when the City 16 one would pay off. So don't think they should be made to expensive, where people take a long time saving for these every 5 cities to save for these so they get max use out of them.. So not when at how many cities all these projects finally pay off vs just buying cities or skipping some. Something to take into consideration. City Discount doesn't do much if unaffordable. Their high food cost makes whether worth getting depend on food prices I guess, but why not? Add another I guess.

So if I buy this project at 29 Cities, could boost 30 Cities with it & delete it right after? (Making nations plan on going that high is a good thing if it does benefit them for thinking ahead.) New Project: Military Expansion Requirement: At least 3,500,000 Soldier kills, 100,000 Tanks destroyed, 10,000 Aircraft destroyed, 1,000 ships destroyed Cost: $0 Effect: The next city purchased after this project is bought for the first time is reduced to $0. This project can only be purchased buy a player with less than 30 cities. This project cannot be deleted until a player is at 30 cities or higher. I think most of these look good, but the Advanced Pirate Economy one could be made better. Maybe a 10% boost or something? Even 20% or something high to make it exciting. Need several prerequisites, make it something cool to aim for. Even the ones I wouldn't use, gives people something to buy and more content is good. Military Expansion One and Pirate Economy look the most interesting to me, but 5% boost is kind of low. (Sure I'll have enough kills or whatever by the time I'm 29 Cities, which would seem the best time to use the military expansion.) The spy and other thing are things which nations who have a ton of stuff already might go for, but pirate project thing is like a route people can go and should make it worthwhile. Marginal benefits aren't that exciting when buying really expensive projects, but do like the idea of the Pirate one. Could it be worth me prioritzing Activity Center, PB, Pirate Economy and Advanced Pirate Economy over getting Intel Agency. It should be good enough for that. One of the better project ideas, just seems the benefit should be higher percent. 20% at least maybe, but more possibly. Not going to argue with you on cost, just make it worth the cost. New Project: Advanced Surveillance Network Not even sure if this is better than PB, so not as exciting. However something for people to edge out their spy odds with the extra money and slots. (Advanced Pirate Economy is similar in it's hard to tell if it's better than Pirate Economy, but guess they stack.)

Now Lead is like 3.4k and Iron like 2.4k; so definity more expensive than I've seen them before. Maybe in anticipation of knowing he wants to do changes to make them more expensive? Still disagree resources were getting cheaper, but guess them getting more expensive could be good in some ways. lol

Adding stuff requires no more work than doing this & making cities way more expensive for players not already at 55 Cities. Better ways to do a resource sink, If he wants to make cities more expensive as one, he should start there. (Not saying he's not doing enough updates, just should do good ones if he's going to.) This really isn't solving anything, since resources aren't really down in price. However still better ways to do resource sinks, make it more expensive for the top city nations to get more and make them use more of their money/resources. Shouldn't do updates which aren't really that good just for the sake of doing updates, better nothing than making things worse. Even though resources are more expensive than a few years ago, if they seem cheaper it's only because the top nations are so rich; so put the cost on them to get even more cities beyond what they have. Everyone will need to pay that price to reach that city count then & fair. (Resource consumption changes are pointless, probably bad in making balancing out ciites harder. However city cost increase? Just helps the very top nations. Food Bonus removal, will just do so need a lot more land to make producing food profitable. Pointless changes imo.) Mostly I see a lot of false assumptions as why this should be done & see it as just helping those who already have the cities bought. So trying to be constructive in pointing out the obivous flaws. When nations are already over 50 Cities, why is making it harder for nations to even reach 30 considered a priority over making it easier for others to catch up fairly; but making the resource sink start at 57 Cities; where no one has bought yet? The other changes without the city cost increase still makes it harder for others to catch up, since Projects use a ton of resources if this does jack up their price. My only interest is any changes make the game better and not worse. I'm not emotionally attached to this issue, if game makes it not worth aiming for high cities; I won't. I can just stay at 6 Cities, if that is optimal. I can just focus on being strong in the lower tier and able to counter anyone there. Let those already high in city counts deal with battles there if the game doesn't want us to catch up in Cities and Projects. If we want it harder to catch up with top cities & them just to grow out of reach of anyone; maybe this will pass. Otherwise I think it won't. To me makes no sense to suddenly increase the cost for low city count nations for the resource sink, rather than the top nations getting more; so it's more expensive instead for them to climb further ahead faster. Someone at 20 or 30 cities are still just trying to play catch up; not nearly top tier when there are 50+ CIty nations. To me 20 Cities is just minimum requirements for Aurora, not top tier at all. If you want it to be possible to reach top tier, you need to be able to get past 40 Cities, maybe even 50. So adds huge cost to even reach the mid tier somewhat, so better to hover in the bottom tier and not try going higher for a long tiem. But just a game we adapt our expectations and goals based on the changes. If changes makes reaching the top tier city wise unfeasible, focus on being strong in lower tier raiding or don't play. lol Yes, I know it was just idea put forth and Prefontaine the front man for it. However I think it's a bad idea and thus won't come to be. So can end it at that. If I'm wrong, I'll live with it, but think it's bad for the game. More content I'd encourage Alex to do rather than balance changes based on imaginary problems. Have seen improvements since gone, so think people complaining he's done no updates are exaggerating some. However adding stuff are the good updates. If someone is complaining they spent $3k real cash on infra and gets wrecked; solution isn't to do people who blow that much money are out of reach invincible; with no way for others to catch up without blowing 6k instead. Game shouldn't be completely pay huge sums of money to win or already having played before changes to be competitive. If I'm going to play, I'd rather give advise I think is good; rather than encourage breaking the game. If he doesn't like or pay attention to what I think on this, his choice. I think game would be worse off for it, so trying to help him. I know he's one dev, which is why he needs us to help him point out if an idea isn't great. Help him avoid mistakes if possible. If he doesn't want my advise, I won't give it and let whatever happens; happen without bothering. However think he puts these threads out since he wants advise.

Pirate Economy looks good for the upgrade, just hope I'm able buy it before it's jacked up in price. So support that, but will try getting it before the price increase. Nvm, doesn't enhance the existing project. New project to make it better. More projects the better, so cool with that. Military Expansion looks good to help people catch up easier, if they can get an expensive city free. Not bad to make it a little easier to catch up. I consider pointless achievements, pointless. However might as well add them as resource sink for those who care about that. Don't have a problem with any of these. Much better than doing so everything costs more resources as a resource sink. If achievements add some benefit, such each achievement you gain, gives you 1% Population Increase to all your cities or something. Would matter more, but if just a resource sink; sure some will do it anyways. 1% pop was just example, but benefit could anything. This game when I get achievements since they're pointless, I don't really care. If the change is made to make it a lot more expensive to catch up to those over 50 Cities; should make Activity Center last up to 50 Cities & the bonus from it increase with your city count up to City 20 at least. Then after 30 the benefit starts decreasing until none when you get to City 55. Balance out their advantage in getting their cities before the increase. If Activity Center compensates for the sudden cost increase in cities; then it wouldn't make it harder for newer nations to catch up.

Like Rughzhenhaide mentioned, add new shiny stuff for resource sinks. Better than making it harder to catch up in Cities to those at the top already in my opinion. We can come up with better than just boosting cost of existing stuff for resource sinks. If it doesn't make resource costs go up, their advantage in not needing to pay that; who knows how much it will be? New stuff they also need to pay for it, so it's fair. Lack of interesting new things added are the kind of updates lacking, not pointlessly changing the balance; so those who already have a ton of cities gain a big advantage; for having already bought them beforehand. Their advantage is big enough for already having it sooner. Already hard enough for a 20 city nation to catch up to a 30 City; this just makes the cost way more for them to catch up. So even 20 City Naiton would be made to make it much harder to catch up & stuck at that level really long if they build to it. We can design updates around making the top tier out of reach, or we can add improvements and projects which are resource sink & add more exciting content to strive for; rather than demotivate people from thinking it's possible to catch up. Give people more reason to try. (If it's moving needle, where if you start getting close to catching up; they make cost much bigger to catch up further; just seems impossible to catch up if that is how updates are done. Keeping the top tier out of reach. I have no reason to strive for more cities than I do now, if it's impossible to catch up anyways to the top tier & just put myself in range to be down declared on by them. Maybe fate I'm meant to not care to grow beyond my current city count though, if this change of making it way harder to catch up pointless. What they do doesn't matter if we just stay in seperate tiers, where can't hurt each other. (Almost like 2 tier game, new nations might as well just stay low city count & avoid being in range of the older players; they'll never catch up with.) Game is playable plenty for new nations, as long as they don't care about reaching the top tier & just enjoy low level raiding for fun. Where striving for more doesn't matter. If possible for me to make a few hundred million per week at my current level, so reason to go higher if not going to be able to be competitive in a fight with the top nations no matter how hard I try. I play in my tier, where it's encouraged to stay with the changes. They keep climbing further out of reach and become fatter whales. I can adapt my thinking where city count doesn't matter, since they've bought themselves out of range and their nations don't matter to me either. If suddenly the price to catch up is jacked up majorly & all we get otherwise as update is something to encourage us to stay low city. Just don't bother with trying to go higher. We can still bounty war each other, even if out of reach of each other; if we really want to fight in some way. Even buying to 20 Cites direct would seem like a terrible idea, if everyone above that suddenly gains huge advange in already having the cities above and can down declare on you. Much better to stay low, until you can afford to go much higher; where you can stand a chance against. If that goal post is constantly moved so more expensive to catch; maybe not even worth trying. Just view more cities as pointless inflation of NS. Probably better to try being as invincible as you can in the low tier; than build up to a higher tier; where it's rigged against new players from having a chance. 20 Cities? Then 30 Nations Cities could screw me & cost exponentially increased to catch up. So always would just screw myself by getting in range of those who got the cities before it was decided resource sink to make it much harder to catch up was the best way. Maybe better I don't care about getting more cities & fine with where I'm at if this goes through. Cities is just another stat which only matters as much as we want to think it does if they can't fight lower city nations anyways. Almost playing a idfferent game, those who started early and those starting late. (I feel if the goal post to catch up is pointlessly moved in their favor heavily, no reason to think it won't happen again if I get close. So just thing not to care about, if the game wants to make it impossible to catch up.) Currently just a matter of time to catch up if I care to, but if game is rigged for us not to catch up; then I never will. Why care about more cities, if more cities are a perk for nations who started early and will cost me way more to just barely get in range so they can down declare on me; while paying a lot more so they can? Focus on tier where you have a chance and game isn't rigged; so keeps getting more expensive for same cities people you're trying to catch up with already bought & making a ton of income off that; proceeding even higher? Can't just play good to catch up, literally need to cheat to catch up if the game is rigged so they keep getting more expensive for newer players who don't already have them. Solution to that is simple if game wants to make it a lot more expensive to catch up to same city count as they got to years ago, don't try. Make them more expensive starting above the highest city count anyone has achieved if you want a resource sink that matters. Would the biggest nations rather keep new cities cheaper and cities they already got more expensive? Maybe if they don't care about game being competitive. However it's a lot more fair to make it more expensive for higher tier cities nobody has gotten yet. Starting after City 60 or 55, it cost 50k of each resource extra for each city; then it gets more expensive with resources each City after; then it's a resource sink which rather than does so newer nations can't catch up; slows how fast the top nations are gaining more cities & boosting resource prices to get them. Also fair, since everyone needs to pay that to get past that city count number. Quite a few nations have over 50 cities, one of them 56. Would be impossible to catch up with them if suddenly after City 20; it just keeps costing a lot extra for each city compare to what they paid; as they're making a lot more thanks to their cities. Do we want them to be so we can't ever catch up or competitive game? Doing so climbing higher in cities than anyone has done makes sense if we want a resource sink and it harder to get really high city. However shouldn't be done where we want to make it really hard to catch up where people have already gotten. Since proposed free city project only works up to CIty 30, that won't nearly make up for the extra cost for city 21-56 for newer players. This game should be competitive somehwat, rather than just made so whales are out of reach. So it matters. If not competitive, why try to play well and catch up? Only reason to play is alliance community and having some fun in the lower tiers then when bored. Since game isn't worth trying to be competitive if the devs don't care about that. If you somehow make it to City 29 despite this change making it more expensive, doesn't even matter if you get City 30 free. Since will never catch up to those 56 Cities & just be in range to get hit by them. So maybe I should not care about a high city count or it being possible to compete playing this late in, just accept the top nations are there because they started early; newer players shouldn't bother. Bad for the game though. Those with over 50 Cities, perk for starting the game early. EVeryone else should just avoid being in their range. lol Really just like mathematic equation if it's possible to catch up and how long. This might make it impossible, even if it would be before this. Should make sure if someone works out the math, it's possible. Rather than the opposite. If they're more active than the older player. City 20 I think is mathetically possible in 2-4 months if someone plays well enough. However reaching 20 cities & not enough to go further would be bad if suddenly they get exponentially more expensive there & everyone you just put yourself in range has a huge advantage; in they got there cheaper & already ahead. Already ahead is enough of an advantage. Complaining they're ahead for playing longer is BS, but game mechanics shouldn't change to make it harder beyond that. As is they earned that advantage. They didn't fully earn it compare to newer players if they need to pay a lot more. (They more won it as a bonus for starting earlier then. High CIty count like 56, perk for starting early newer players should never try to reach. Since they were to late to start playing to get that bonus in city count.) Basically the highest city count nations got a bunch of cities free if starting only City 20 resource cost keeps incresing in each one. Who knows how many cities free they got for starting early. 20 Cities is where it suddenly starts getting more expensive each one? Why not have it start getting more expensive in the higher tier, where it slows down how fast those already at the top keep gaining more cities and make them do a resource sink for each one? Rather than making new players do a massie resource sink just to try getting half the cities they do. Since this game is suppose to be competitive, 29 CIties or 30 Cities isn't really that much; when people have almost double 30 Cities already. 20 Cities for me would be the bare minimum for full Aurora citizenship, but it's still not really that high tier. You need 30+ to be high tier. Maybe even 40+.. 25 Cities is probably mid tier now. Rolling back anybodies cities to even the playing field would be unfair to them, but doesn't mean it's not unfair to suddenly make it a lot more expensive to catch up to those who already have a massive advantage.

You're right, shouldn't have said it that way. (Some might support it or not based on personal benefit, but suggestion itself wasn't bad meaning.) Haven't felt well since this morning (No excuse for anything, but I started in the threat trying to look at good angles & got off track somehow.), so probably was overly brutal with how I wanted to convey my point. Kind of how I see if someone is starting scratch and they look at the current mechanics, can they make it if they try? I feel it's possible, so should be careful not to break it. Since if it's hopeless of new nations, why try? Feel if I try, making enough to get 20 Cities at 1500 not taking projects into consideration is possible within 3.75 months at my rate. (Faster if can keep it up optimal & no expenses.) Don't think that is to bad of curve if someone is active daily and trying, so careful not to break that. (Rather get there debt free, than not.) 20 might be artificial number, but minimum for full Aurora Citizenship; even if I consider us the same anyways. So worth aiming for. Even if I consider us the same for all intents and purposes beyond tiers; wouldn't put Aurora in my alliance field on the forum until I make it and earn that title. Over simplifying it, any amount of cities in between are meaningless; unless needed to win a close war. 20 is worth it because Aurora I think is.) If alliance I decided to join had a 30 City Minimum for main AA, then that would be the minimum I'd care about. However Aurora I think is a good alliance. If someone strong enough down declares I need double my city count to win; so be it if that would make the difference though. lol. 1.5b for cities alone is expensive enough, not in a hurry and know patience is key. Taking all the projects into consideration, price is much more. This would make it more expensive probably, but I can deal with it. Just expect it to take a lot longer, so not to try doing it nearly as fast. Since will takes years probably regardless.