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The problems with strength ratings.


Prefontaine
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I lose about one improvement every 2-300 infra that gets destroyed in my cities. If someone has 300 infra and 40 improvements, they either just sold down, or just haven't actually lost any GAs.

 

And here's the thing - in order to do that, that nation had to actually sell off all of that infrastructure and put themselves in that position. You're not willing to require people to do that in order to win. But why are things like that in the first place?

 

Because of what you yourself described - the fact that the aggressor in war pretty much always wins, and usually, can shut down their opponent pretty quickly, and do a lot of damage over a short period of time. Protecting built up nations who have fallen from the upper tiers means an incentive for wars to be over quickly. Arrgh! did indeed demonstrate the mechanic functioning perfectly in our war against Mensa & friends.

 

What's really going on here is that a lot of the players in this game are taking advantage of the fact that military can be built up over 4 days to run nations that have no standing armed forces but, in less than a week, can have a MASSIVE military that they didn't actually have to pay for. This is an exploitation of game mechanics, and it's one that Sheepy tried to prevent in the past by making it take much longer to build up a military. Fact of the matter is that nation strength is already WAY over-inflated, with nations who have donated and war-avoided their way into becoming ridiculously large already.

 

This entire game is designed around encouraging war, which happens to be the only thing that destroys infra. Of course there's an easy way to beat Arrgh - stop hugging infra and actually coordinate and fight against us. We're only one alliance. But nobody actually wants to do that. All of these anti-Arrgh! suggestions are suggestions in favor of making this politics and building infrastructure. But guess what, y'all? This isn't Cyber Nations. Maybe instead of complaining that people are playing the game, you guys should play the game with us and actually have fun and not be so attached to pixels on a screen. Maybe if there were any other alliances other than Arrgh! who were interested in the "war" half of Politics & War, this wouldn't be a big issue in the first place.

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Wrong Hereno, they've just been airstriked down in infra. You can't sell infra and retain improvements.

 

AND as pre says, you can't just play the game with you unless you sell all improvements and infra putting yourself at a disadvantage still as you have much less improvements.

Edited by Phiney
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You know, the entire thing could be likened to the Mongols invading Europe. The powers of Orbis could put aside their differences and launch a real, large war against us to see if they can actually finally stop us from raiding everyone. It would be actually fun to see such a thing happen. You think it wouldn't be nice for us to be challenged? No, all you guys want is to play the same (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways) again, have the same stupid one-war-per-year cycle between nation building where nobody actually enjoys the game itself at all. Stop being so !@#$ing lazy and boring and do something interesting. ADAPT to the new game mechanics and actually play P&W for the game it is. I'm so sick of !@#$ing whining, the majority of us aren't even doing that. My nation isn't. There are plenty of people in my range who could kick my ass but aren't going to. I imagine the same is in the upper tier. You want to win? Actually win. Actually play the game and beat us. FFS

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Guys from Arrgh (and Mensa) have repeatedly stated that we can be beaten, you even showed people how to do it! But instead of putting in a bit of effort and thought into how to do it, they would rather cry to Sheepy to change mechanics. No one in this game is unbeatable.

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☾☆

Warrior of Dio

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Wrong Hereno, they've just been airstriked down in infra. You can't sell infra and retain improvements.

 

AND as pre says, you can't just play the game with you unless you sell all improvements and infra putting yourself at a disadvantage still as you have much less improvements.

then don't airstrike them down? or get sheepy to just let people sell off their infra? this makes it even worse because it's a problem that you knowingly caused by choosing to air strike everything into the ground

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The issue with the arrgh genius solution of everyone banding together to stop them is that 5-10 days later they can get back up and carry on doing it. 0-700 infra is dirt cheap.

 

Arrghs solution actually further highlights the problem. A solution that requires 3x the number of people to solve while fighting at a disadvantage in strength per nation (not score) shows how messed up the situation is. 

 

EDIT: And the other solution of intentionally gimping your nation also does as well.

Edited by Prefontaine
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You know, the entire thing could be likened to the Mongols invading Europe. The powers of Orbis could put aside their differences and launch a real, large war against us to see if they can actually finally stop us from raiding everyone. It would be actually fun to see such a thing happen. You think it wouldn't be nice for us to be challenged? No, all you guys want is to play the same (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn't be bringing it up anyways) again, have the same stupid one-war-per-year cycle between nation building where nobody actually enjoys the game itself at all. Stop being so !@#$ lazy and boring and do something interesting. ADAPT to the new game mechanics and actually play P&W for the game it is. I'm so sick of !@#$ whining, the majority of us aren't even doing that. My nation isn't. There are plenty of people in my range who could kick my ass but aren't going to. I imagine the same is in the upper tier. You want to win? Actually win. Actually play the game and beat us. FFS

You call yourself a socialist while raiding? You are the imperialists.

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You call yourself a socialist while raiding? You are the imperialists.

Some people separate IC from OOC. >.>

<&Partisan> EAT THE SHIT

<blacklabel> lol @ ever caring about how much you matter in some dumbass nation simulation browser game. what a !@#$in pathetic waste of life

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I'm actually perfectly fine with losing improvements in line with Infra. I don't understand the thinking behind not implementing it in the first place. Regardless of the changes made, I will still raid. The alternative is waiting around building up my account until my leadership orders me into battle. I don't find that overly fun. I've lead browser game communities in the past so have no desire to do that. So what is left for a guy like me? Either quitting the game and playing something like Travian/Tribal Wars or playing with the war mechanics. Until I get bored, ill be playing with the war mechanics.

 

Also, my comment about it being a draw was tongue in cheek. Everyone who paid attention could see you tied up 4-5 of Arrgh ' s top tier singlehandedly.

 

Browser games encourage cooperation and team work. So I find it quite normal that teamwork solves the problem. That is how it should be.

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Warrior of Dio

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The fact that nations with high city count, strong military, and low infra can updeclare on nations with the same city count low or mid-sized military, and high infra is a problem that needs to be addressed. I think Pre has come up with a viable solution by changing nation score to be less about infra and more about city count. If nations with the ability to build more evenly matched militaries are able to declare on each other it level sets the field.

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Terrible idea.  This proposal just hands the advantage to the old and rich nations so they can continue to stack money and pixels whilst keeping military build nations away.  A way for rich nations to dominate the game and become untouchable.

 

Infrastructure is a choice.  2000 infrastructure per city is not a small amount.  You make a lot of money from it.  That's a choice.  If you sat at 1000 infra then you could downdeclare on people but you choose to go for 2000 infra.

 

I believe Sheepy wants less money knocking around in the game rather than more.  That's partly why baseball was introduced (as a money sink).  Less money in circulation also helps him to sell credits.  Arrgh are performing a great service in this regard :P

 

It seems plenty of people just want everybody to play in one boring farmville style way.  Then it will be really, really boring.

 

Ask yourselves why Arrgh haven't hit Mensa or The Syndicate.  We're not invincible, far from it.

Edited by Dan77
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You call yourself a socialist while raiding? You are the imperialists.

 

there has been a revolution in the name of [wherever you're from irl]

 

you are now the grand revolutionary leader

 

do you:

a. sit around and grow your infrastructure

b. destroy capitalism

 

join arrgh and be free, or get peace through force, funding us, or our own personal preferences

 

The fact that nations with high city count, strong military, and low infra can updeclare on nations with the same city count low or mid-sized military, and high infra is a problem that needs to be addressed. I think Pre has come up with a viable solution by changing nation score to be less about infra and more about city count. If nations with the ability to build more evenly matched militaries are able to declare on each other it level sets the field.

cities don't, on their own, do anything. you need infrastructure to make cities work. the "problem" here is that while, in theory, infrastructure directly correlates to improvements, this is subverted temporarily during wars. this is on purpose, and it is for a reason.

 

the only way i can see to fix it is to either put a score for each improvement, or to basically make score entirely dependent on standing military forces. i don't think either of these is workable. especially when the problem can be solved through gameplay, because all of you are more than capable of doing what arrgh is doing, and you've even shown that we can be beaten in this very thread. so how is this a problem? because you don't like adapting to our strategy, that counters yours? i mean is that not what a game is?

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The fact that nations with high city count, strong military, and low infra can updeclare on nations with the same city count low or mid-sized military, and high infra is a problem that needs to be addressed. I think Pre has come up with a viable solution by changing nation score to be less about infra and more about city count. If nations with the ability to build more evenly matched militaries are able to declare on each other it level sets the field.

Changing the scoring system has been discussed many times. It's not as though Pre has suddenly came up with a winning idea. As I've stated again and again, mechanics are not the issue. The issue is the player base. The advantage of having high infra/econ builds gives you a disadvantage when it comes to fighting. Having a fighting account has the disadvantage of much less money. This is the choice the player has to make. Do you want security or do you want to be greedy? If people think that mechanics will alter people's play styles, they are sadly mistaken.

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Warrior of Dio

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It's funny that you claim any change would just benefit older nations, because right now the only determining factor in military strength is number of cities, and the biggest determinant of number of cities is time spent in game. It's been highlighted over and over again that war range does not reflect capacity to wage war. And down declares and coordination are not a viable option because anyone with the appropriate infra for their improvements and a comparable military will be too high to hit you.

 

You're going to get a lot more mileage out of that clip before this is resolved.

Edited by durmij
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Arrgh: I've tried liking you, but I just can't anymore. You guys are humongous dicks that exploit a flaw in the system and then &#33;@#&#036;ing about how 'we should adapt to the system'. I'm sorry but not everyone wants to play like how you people play. Why does Sheepy have to listen to a few people whining when nearly everyone else wants to change?

<&Partisan> EAT THE SHIT

<blacklabel> lol @ ever caring about how much you matter in some dumbass nation simulation browser game. what a !@#$in pathetic waste of life

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Changing the scoring system has been discussed many times. It's not as though Pre has suddenly came up with a winning idea. As I've stated again and again, mechanics are not the issue. The issue is the player base. The advantage of having high infra/econ builds gives you a disadvantage when it comes to fighting. Having a fighting account has the disadvantage of much less money. This is the choice the player has to make. Do you want security or do you want to be greedy? If people think that mechanics will alter people's play styles, they are sadly mistaken.

If anything the current system is limiting people's playstyles to two, either big and economic or small and war. There is no way to be a bit of both. This current system is very all or nothing.

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I get what many of you in Arrgh are saying, but I don't think the mechanism of the ns score are doing anything to motivate people to go to war, quite the contrary.

Take an alliance not in the top #20. If they were to band together to fight an alliance like Arrgh, the risk of them losing would be far too high. You have nations with 500-600 ns that have 15-20 cities and max ground/max air. Even if I'd find 4 nations that were in range of these nations AND had max ground/air we'd most likely not be able to win because we're still like 500 planes away from their max. 

 

That inclines alliances to bundle up with top #10 alliances, do nothing ever because it would be a FA nightmare and just strengthen the treaty web.

 

When you have a system that makes certain nations far to OP in the same score that just makes people avoid fighting as much as they possibly can. It's 100% fine that you guys want to raid, but the way the mechanism of the game is structures make it so that people either have to pick raiding as well or band up to avoid ever waring. There's got to be a middle-way here.

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It's my birthday today, and I'm 33!

That means only one thing...BRING IT IN, GUYS!

*every character from every game, comic, cartoon, TV show, movie, and book reality come in with everything for a HUGE party*

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As I said in the OP, Raiders will not like this. I'm waiting for someone who is not a raider to suggest that this is a bad idea and provide reasons why. Missiles were overpowered back in the day, Guardian had the most missiles, we campaigned for missile adjustments (ID was one). There have been other examples since. When you see something as imbalanced as this, you should address it. Arrgh and other low infra raiders don't want it to change because their play style is currently easy and do not want it to get harder. They are afraid to be in range of nations of relatively equal military strengths. That's all that is obvious from Arrgh in this thread so far. 

 

Remove yourself from the game and what benefits/hurts you. Look at it from a point of view where you are not a player. You have a scenario where low infra raiders will always have a higher max military than anyone who can declare upon them, unless that player sells off 200M-ish worth of their nation to intentionally weaken their score without weakening their nations. The other alternative is to pre-empt them with a coalition of 2-3x their numbers of weaker nations (only weaker in score) who can very easily be disrupted by a small handful. 1 person comes in and declares war at the right time against this coalition while they're fighting and all 5 will lose almost instantly. 

 

The ease at which low infra raiders are able to operate versus what it takes to counter it are irreconcilable. It's an imbalance that can easily be address by dropping the value of infra on score, and increasing the value of cities (especially) and military. 

 

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Again.

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^This

This isn't about "strategies" and "different playstyles", this is about patently broken mechanics. The prevailing attitude of "git gud m8" does nothing to address the mechanical imbalance.

Edited by durmij
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