playerwhoplays

Yeah, I bet it will be, but I'll be the one laughing.

Edit: A couple disclaimers that I should have placed here in the first place. Firstly, I've always been a mid-tier player across my time in this game, and my nations (the "third" in my nation name has a meaning), and I am speaking from the position of that lower-to-middle tier experience. Secondly, both of these examples are extremes that are highly unlikely to be put into practice due to economical strain. I glossed over this point originally, but these scenarios presume that money is no object and that your alliance is willing to support such a ridiculous project. A nation to these specs is WAY harder to maintain in reality. Lastly, I understand that I'm coming across as a salty new player. I'm not sure there was a way to post this without people immediately assuming that I was one, frankly. I'll bite that bullet. But this is a problem that's plagued lower-level players for a very long time from my experience. The examples are exaggerated, but the problem at its core is simple: with a little thought and some work, you can fight a war that you are absolutely guaranteed to win just by messing with your score a little bit. Alright, enough of that crap. Original post follows. --------- So. If the March balance change to war score is any indicator, I'm definitely in the minority of this...but I wholeheartedly believe that the current system for war is absolutely ridiculous. The very brief case synopsis? A player with 25 cities can declare on a player with 10 cities, with a little creative accounting. I'm obviously not going to leave it at that claim without proof, but that's what the rest of the post is for, isn't it? I spent a few hours running the numbers and theory-crafting the most ridiculous scenario I could possibly think of, so join me for the ride: this is the math that allows someone with 25 cities to be attacked by someone with 70. No jokes, no lies. It's possible, and I'll show you why. First and foremost, what the hell am I talking about? "Down-declares are an essential part of warfare! If we can't down declare how will we ever fight a winning war?" Well, my wonderful colleague, you're right. Being able to declare on a range of targets is extremely important. If you couldn't declare on people just 3 cities below you, it would be extremely hard to find targets for raids or wars. Don't worry, I'm not saying down-declaring should be entirely removed. However, in the current state of the game, it does desperately need to he toned down. Let's start with our first situation. You are a nation with 10 cities, 2,000 infra in each, 4 projects, max military improvements. Your rather small alliance is at war with another rather small alliance, no global-scale conflict. You are able to fight your enemies well enough that you have max military right now, although you have no missiles of either type. In this situation, you have 2012.5 Nation Score. The equation for this nation score is as follows... 9×75+((2000×10)÷40)+(4×20)+((5×10×3000)×0.0004 )+((5×10×250)×0.025)+((5×10×15)×0.3)+(3×10×5)+10=2012.5 Simplified, that's 675 city score, 500 infrastructure score, 80 project score, 747.5 military score, and the base score of 10. Your opponent hires a mercenary who is playing as a dedicated down-declaring nation. This mercenary has 25 cities; how on earth does someone at 25 cities attack someone with just 10? Simple. Minimizing their cities. When I say minimize, I mean the absolute bare minimum: all military improvements except dockyards, and a reactor. This requires just 800 infrastructure. Additionally, they have zero military at the time of declaration, and they do have five projects, but no nukes or missiles. This nation has a score of 2,410. Again, the equation follows. 24×75+((800×25)÷40)+(5×20)+10 This equates to 1800 city score, 500 infrastructure score, 100 project score, no military score, and the base score of 10. This nation is EASILY within range to declare on your maxed out nation. So why is this a problem? "He's declaring with no military, I'll just roll him and get superiority quickly!" You should know it's never that simple. After all, they just have to perform the single oldest trick in the nation sim player's arsenal: double buy military at turn change and, in this case, laugh as your opponent is literally unable to fight back. The nation with 10 cities has a max soldier count of 10×5×3000, which equals 150,000. The nation with 25 cities can buy 25x5×1000 soldiers per day, or 125,000. With a double buy that's an instant 250,000 soldiers. There is absolutely nothing that 10 city nation can do in this situation. So, what's the point to be made here? Well, simple...this gets exponentially worse as your score and city count rises. This is where my claim of a c70 fighting a c25 comes from. It sounds absurd (and is an unrealistic achievement) but is entirely possible, just following the math. Same parameters and calculations as last time, the c25 is maxed out and the c70 is minimizing hard. c25 nation strength: 24×75+((2000×25)÷40)+(10×20)+((5×25×3000)×0.0004 )+((5×25×250)×0.025)+((5×25×15)×0.3)+(3×25×5)+10 5128.75 NS. 1800 city score, 1250 infra score, 200 project score, 1868.75 military score, 10 base score. c70 nation strength: 69×75+((70×800)÷40)+(11×20)+10 6805 NS. 5175 city score, 1400 infra score, 220 project score, no military score, 10 base score. The minimum NS a 6805 score nation can declare on is 5103.75. Hell, the 70c could pack on around 100 planes and still be able to make that hit, giving them even more of an edge when they double buy 2100 more to fight the 25c's 1875. Obviously, that scenario is ridiculous. Nobody has 70 cities, and it would likely be a waste to get there, especially with no economic improvements. But you know what's a little less ridiculous? 50 cities with a more balanced setup. There are already nations at and above this number, so it's no stretch to say that this is possible right now. Might take a lot of elbow grease, but it's both possible and feasible. Which leads into another question... Why isn't this a more common practice? "If it were really so effective why don't we see every single alliance with a ton of nations like this?" Well... there's a really, REALLY heavy downside to putting all your stats into combat: you have no cash flow to speak of. A nation in this vein requires support from other nations just to keep from going bankrupt, starving, or losing power. Not to mention, it's kind of lame to solely exist for combat if you think about it. Makes you a burden to others at all times unless you're fighting a war. And as such, it's a program that has to be run at a loss, and the person doing it needs to be skilled (and might be better for a different role anyway). But this is still something that can be completely abused. And it needs to be addressed before it suddenly becomes a major issue. So what can we do about it? Well, I don't think a hard cap on down declares is a good idea. Too many ways that can be abused. However, I do believe the way score is calculated needs to be changed. I do ask that you take this suggestion with the notion that I'm not some top tier veteran god of war, but just someone who has seen the same issue plaguing the lower echelon for years. My suggestion is to lessen the weight your military has within your score, and increase the weight of cities significantly to compensate. I'm really not sure what the right answer to "by how much?" is personally, but hopefully I can trust some of the fine folks here in the forums to get some math thrown around and come up with a few ideas. This could solve the problem with absolutely ludicrous down-declares of a 15+ city difference while still allowing alliances to defend themselves too. Equally importantly, there needs to be a tighter up-declare cap as well to prevent this system from being abused to all high hell. It doesn't have to be much, just enough to make sure that if you're fighting someone, their allies with another city or two can still counter and punish. Concerns about a bunch of c15s hitting a single c30 and the other c30s being unable to lift a finger are entirely valid if the c15s are skilled. (this is probably the most extreme exaggeration in this post, honestly) Anyway, that's the post. Thanks for taking the time to read through. This took me a couple hours (on and off) to write up and double check my math for, but hopefully it was worth it. Here's hoping I can start a discussion on a healthier way to wage war.

My nation is Galloway and my link is https://politicsandwar.com/nation/id=26599 Nice to meet everyone.