Gudea

It's not about replacing or changing game features. I explained to you what the game IS - a Geopolitical simulator. What you expect @Alex to do is a somewhat extensive redesign of P&W. That's like expecting Milton Bradley to redesign Monopoly to please an insignificant minority of people that want to pretend it's a RPG! P&W, like Monopoly, is not really a RPG. Get it now? If you want to pretend it is, that's fine by me. Now, I fully realize that Alex is tearing off more $$$ with P&W than Buffett and Munger could ever tear down in a thousand years, but have some mercy on the dude. Balancing out a Geopolitical sim is work enough, especially after counting all the dough he hauls in per day. Seriously though - Trying to balance out the Political, Economic, and Military spheres is good enough, without worrying about adding useless fluff. Just that seems like it's still a work in progress after a bunch of years. Maybe the RPG crowd can ask Alex if he can design a Geopolitical RPG. I'll bet he'll do it....and be more than happy to! Oh hell yeah!!! But, when he starts throwing price quotes around, I know you RPG guys are gonna fund it, right? Personally, I outgrew RPG's back in the 1980's. They were fun for awhile....but always somewhat pointless.

@Zephyr - If you've played P&W for any amount of time, it's impossible not to notice that Politics and War is a down-and-dirty Geopolitical simulation game. Social policies of any nation have NO EFFECT on the only three things that matter in Geopolitics, in-game or in reality. The three things that matter are: Political Factors - Associations between nations (individual players), alliances (groups of players), and blocs (groups of alliances). Of course, it's obvious that selection of leaders, advisors, etc. in Political, Economic, and Military affairs is also a Political matter; Economic Factors - Monies collected through amount of infrastructure, city improvements, drilling and mining, manufacturing, banking and commodities/stock trading. Also maximizing city efficiencies through pollution, crime and disease control. At the Alliance level, setting levels of taxation, and the alliance bank turning an extra buck or two through trades, interest charges on loans, etc.; Military Factors - Size and composition of national forces, national and alliance war stocks in money and manufactured materials, and effective protection of national and alliance monies and war materials. All of the above have a DIRECT or INDIRECT effect on EVERY nation in P&W. Social policies have ZERO effect on ANY nation in Politics and War. I haven't bothered looking at my nation's social policies since I set it up. Why bother? For what?

Anyone who bought into NPO's pathetically, yet absolutely pure, pristine, and unadulterated bullshit needs to: A: Never produce offspring; B: Get to a Poison Control Center IMMEDIATELY for an emergency vaccination!:

That should work fine. New players would definitely be able to build/buy faster, and the standard bonus increase of 200k is not exactly a game changer, but would up my net income around 8.5% @ 11 cites and 106 days old. And who can say no to free coin?!

You're reading my mind, man!

Yup. Tech tree action. Always like build games. And wargames too....ah yes, ever since playing with cardboard pieces on maps with hexagons....back in the day.

@Prefontaine Ah, I get it. How 'bout new projects that cost a crap-ton of materials, and some that would be be obtainable if only if a previous project is built first. Example: If ya bought the Nuclear Research Facility project, then make an improvement available, ie. A MIRV Nuke Project! Multiple city targets for the price of one shot with a limit of, say, 4-6 MIRVs per shot (mat'ls price will be the highest for the 6-pack, of course!). The upgrade will also eliminate the original project from the players list. And make the six-shooter so pricey in materials, even the banksters would be scared! Maybe the same with the rest, except the manufacturing projects. A tech tree kind of thing.

@Alex, I think that the entire idea of being fixated on using cities to take care of what seems to be a material glut is kind of, well, pointless. Perhaps a better fix would be to reduce the amount of raw materials available. For example, maybe delete the 50% production bonus for having max mines, wells, and/or farms. This would have the effect of increasing the price of the 6 raw materials by around a third over time (after players use up the excess materials), since production of each would be 1/3 less efficient on all of Orbis. Processed materials would have to increase in price also, since the raw materials needed to manufacture the 4 processed ones increased in price, or takes more cities to mine/drill/grow. I'd predict market prices wouldn't be affected immediately, but it would increase slowly over time; nothing radical. Basic supply and demand. Maybe an easy fix to the program/game? Even the dead hand of Keynes would approve! Something like changing productivity at the beginning of the supply chain (raw mat'ls) might be a permanent economic fix for all of Orbis. Just don't over-correct the food! No starvation!😳 @Prefontaine, What do you think? N.B. - I'm still kind of a n00b, but the Orbis materials market does seem to function on supply and demand.

I like the idea of using projects to increase demand for materials. If the project(s) is (are) relatively inexpensive, but cost a lot of resources, that'd do wonders for market prices. The only catch would be the project or projects would have to be a "gotta have that/these" to a vast majority of players. Just my 2 cents.

It was fun following this one, complete with a surprise war result in more ways than one. Call it a win for Soup, right down to the good sportsmanship! Well played, sirs. Well played!

This lowly serf noticed the same whale pods offshore Monday morning whilst slackin' off on his peasant allotment. So, I ran to the Discord as fast as my n00b feet could carry me, to duly inform my Mighty SK Overlords about sighting these supposedly extinct species of cetaceans. After duly abasing myself before my Masters, one of the Ancients told me the entire species of SA/Alpha whale beached themselves long ago in a mass-extinction rage quit event. Or words to that effect, anyway. The Ancient Oracle also mentioned something about there being more than one whaling fleet involved. I love history.

You guys got some souper impressive war stats!

2-1 in net damage dealt as of 2PM today? Yup! SOUP is HOTT!! Good thing you guys only do soup. A total feast might prove to be way too nutritious and delicious!;)

Hmmm.....free dough? OK!

That video was excellent! Loved the dubbed-in smack-talk and blurb banners! Guys like you taking the time to do these kinds of visuals, stills or video, are what makes P&W totally worth the time! ...although my wife thinks we all need serious help from competent mental health professionals. And that was an entertaining propaganda pic of Gen. Grievious, @Asierith . Nice!