Raphael

A spectre is haunting Orbis: The attrition of new players has always been high. However, almost universally across the game 2023 was one of the worst years for new players in recent memory. I've seen call after call for the developers to do something, to create new content so that might help retain interest in the game. I've been around long enough to remember the other content updates though. A handful of new projects, poorly designed as resource sinks. A small rework of how superiorities work. Small graphics tweaks to the war page... Not exactly the vivacious lineup of amazing content that you would think had come in the past, given the amount of people calling for more now. While I respect and agree with the need for additional features and content, I think people forget the cosmic truth of a sandbox nationsim: In-game content has never been an attractor in this game. The game itself is dreadful. Most of us agree on that, it's a bit of a grind to login and do things. A rare few of us enjoy things like raiding with friends (Arrgh, KT) or playing the economic game (Kinns, Tyrion), but the vast majority of players don't want to constantly grind like this is Old School Runescape. If you joined this game after 2020, you probably don't know any better when I say this: Almost no non-raiding alliance forced, or even recommended, their lower tiers to raid when starting out their nations. Lower tier raiding became a meta once people saw what it could be. Except, that's the problem. It can be amazingly profitable and efficient -- and if you ask any alliance in the top 50 today you'll learn that most don't accept new players unless they agree to grind raiding for at least the first two or three months. I know this is starting to sound counter-intuitive because every Econ and IA head in the game is about to tell me that raiding is the best way to grow new nations and it also limits the amount of money lost to inactive new players if you're not giving them grants or loans in the first place... but I think what's getting lost is the human cost. The players who leave the game rather than grind raiding. It's especially interesting because active raiding almost always takes more activity than most high gov members put into their jobs, yet we expect brand new players to commit to such a playstyle. I know this is probably one of my more controversial essays, I recognize raiding as being highly efficient on paper, but when I think of how many great political players I've met across the years I always remember one thing that sticks out to me: Almost every great political player has been totally disinterested in the actual gameplay of their given Nationsim. The founders of many of the top alliances today had absolutely zero interest in things like raiding when they started out. Food for thought. I don't expect to change many hard-headed minds but I will never give up posting to the forums.

Aurora watching someone get rolled for chatting that shit on a news server:

It would be nice to see Alex come back and be super active again.

Bro it's November right now. effect*

As in, encouraging OOC toxicity isn't the answer to more interesting politics.

I disagree with your entire post, but this piece shows you have no idea what's going on. The development team has almost nothing to do with the development process, and is a huge misnomer on Alex's part. No one on that team can currently code anything. They just give small-room feedback on a few ideas that the admins pitch out and sometimes address balancing issues.

The post isn't even formatted so most people can read it. I'm sorry this is an incredibly low-effort community event. I voted for the few that [seemed] to be actual carved pumpkins.

I feel like this has always been the case since 2006 CN. There either is stuff happening or you're waiting for stuff to happen. If you're lucky and smart, you might be able to make things happen but almost all of us are not in a position to really make impactful decisions. This is the core of why I advocate for democratic systems, open communication within alliances, transparency in governments, etc. People who have never been in a democratic alliance decry it as something that would destroy their way of life if they had the power to vote, or more realistically I think many people look at their fellow alliance members and think "god I don't want them voting"... As in life, I think people can take this a step further but usually don't: If I dislike my alliance community and distrust their ability to work together or towards my own goals, why am I still in this alliance? I think democracy would help establish a new meta of activity and competence internally within alliances whose governments are now forced to self-advocate. Would it be perfect? No. But it's a huge increase in the political content that most of us want from a nationsim. I will never give up on the forums I hate to tell you this but you're screaming into the void, and I think you know it. Village is gone, at least for the moment, and Alex has been AFK going on years now in regards to coding or development. We have no one to actually setup any of these lovely suggestions.

This was my first question before I went to respond to it lol.

I'm sad you feel that way buddy! I always felt the opposite, personally: I couldn't wrap my head around how people actively enjoyed this game without the additional staff/low/high gov/leadership stuff added in. That's why I'm always advocating for systems that are the most inclusive: Democracies, senates, councils, staff, etc. This game is very empty without the community element imo.

I may disagree with the OP but I wish the community would do better about flaming anyone who dares share an opinion on anything.

That's actually very beautiful

Other than lip service to this terminology and some very specific fetishization of realpolitik, what exactly do you see getting tossed aside? Furthermore, what does "pure realpolitik" actually mean in PnW? That no one cares about anything in this game other than the statistics, or just 'winning' any war they join regardless of circumstance or long-term consequence? I'm just curious.

Only in the sense that an increasing amount of poorly written posts will encourage people to further avoid the forums. Otherwise, no this new Waffle House is not making much of a splash.

Love this idea, but my very first thought is that a 20% potential buff to all attack rolls is way too strong. On a d10 system that's +2 to every roll, or +4 in a d20 system. That's way too strong and probably needs to be cut in half. Just remove the starting 10% buff and have it be based purely on the 1% per level for a max of 10% imo. Honest opinion: This piece of the idea makes it way too complex. Just cut this entire section imo or tack it on as a much later addition after playtesting of generals as a feature can occur. General suggestion to reduce these numbers to force player choice. 3 generals basically just means you constantly have generals assigned to all three pieces of your military, 6 seems superfluous especially if they add score. Maybe 1 general and projects or perks can unlock an additional general. Which will inevitably go air->ground->navy in priority anyway almost always but at least it limits you to making that choice. Almost all of these need to be reworked for balance and intention imo. You just spent a paragraph talking about consumption increases but have a ton of stuff on this list regarding reduced cost/upkeep on things. Pick a lane and don't worsen the problem if you've identified one. I would also echo others that generals probably shouldn't add score, or if they do then they should add a minimal static number like projects do. Overall a cool idea, needs some refinement on the hard numbers but I like the concept a lot. Cool stuff!

Are you worried you'll miss all the other content on the forums? Why wouldn't a treaty be worth announcing?

I think the question is irrelevant, as we're already moving away from capitalism. The world is transitioning away from business acumen, competition, freedom of choice, and other hallmarks of capitalistic society - we've been moving away from that for almost 100 years at this point but it's been slow, now we're seeing an acceleration due to a combination of factors such as service-based economics and AI. Homes, for the majority, won't be owned. You won't be able to afford to buy, and your inheritance (if you have one) will be taxed to the point where you can't keep the property. Choice will be (realistically already is for many) reduced to maybe 2-3 options at most, but most will experience a de facto monopoly - See: Walmart, Amazon. Competition has been and will continue to be crushed by virtue of offshore slave-labor in developing countries. etc. The world economic forum already highlighted the plan. "You will own nothing, and be happy" the entire world is going into a subscription-based / rent-based model for everything. We will be Neo-Serfs, paying our lords a yearly tax to live in their world. This is written dramatically for flair, but generally speaking this is how I see things going.

You guys were what made Florida, Florida. You can't withdraw from yourselves! This post should've been Florida seceding from the union. Good luck wherever y'all go though!

Two cool groups signing a treaty

https://politicsandwar.com/nation/id=60967 Just to show a real example [again], this is a guy who declared on my nation when I had zero military. This one nation's total standing military exceeds my maximum military in every category right now. This came with two other similar nations in my defensive slots. Being in an impossible situation isn't engaging or fun gameplay. Even for the winning side, beating down on a dead horse isn't fun or engaging gameplay. It's half of why wars are so short these days tbh. Thus feeding further into the issue of city-gaps (between new and old players) and resource inflation (not as much stuff is consumed during wars). During this global, it was also insanely easy for the largest nations (the ones who "need" to take damage) to escape the fighting entirely after the first round. I couldn't even reach people at my own city count usually just to throw nukes or missiles. The score formula is woefully unbalanced and the recent change made it worse imo. It's never quite made sense in the first place and I know firsthand how hard it is to tweak in a way that makes sense, but I think changing city score was a mistake that actually served whales more than harmed them (unless they're raiders). Generally speaking, I think standing military should boost your score way more than anything else. When you over-rely on cities and infra in the score formula, you unintentionally give the top percentiles a place to hide from everyone else. You also unintentionally make a problem PnW already has worse: Losers stay losing until the winner decides to give up or give too much beige.

Given how much pushback certain parties gave against individual terms on mine and others' behalf, it's sad to see them make it into the very next global peace terms. Targeting individual players is opening the doorway to a lot of toxicity, but that's nothing new for this community. Just new to some of people who signed off on the terms.

Be very careful "hiring gov", I will just tell you now that is how most new communities get exploited by unsavory members of PnW.

Neat!

I swear this game operates on Age of Empires 2 AI logic. If Orange, Hegemony = Yes Get over yourselves, you drove T$ [and partially TKR] into a political corner and expected they'd just... get rolled? Do nothing? edit: Congrats on the treaty.