The problems with strength ratings.

[Dan77]

there are only 32 nations in the game that have 13 cities or more and less then 20528 total infra. 5 of them are arrgh so really only 27 nations that would fit this description. you would also personally have at least a 132 improvement advantage if they were to follow the 2 improvements per 100 infra standard. i dont think the available pool is quite as big as you depicting here

 

That's their decision if they have more than 20,528 infra.  A decision they have made to suit how they want to play.  1500-1600 infra per city is not low infra by any means.  It's a very profitable build even with max military.

 

As for the improvements, that's rubbish.  I have 344 improvements.  20,500 infra can hold 410 improvements.  They could have 66 more improvements than me and still hit me.  Improvements aren't really important for this argument anyway as far as I'm concerned because once you have power and military you can fight.  Anything else is a bonus and just because you can't build 2,000 infra with all the benefits that gives and not be able to attack people with my build doesn't mean that my build is unfair in any way.

[seabasstion]

ah you are right i made an end of the day math mistake. i was looking at your improvements over your infra level and transposed that figure into an advantage on the higher infra builds. sorry mate

[Alex]

On a related note, I'd like to point you all into the direction of this little podcast in which I detail a new development feature that will allow more a much smoother transition into a score change whilst maintaining multiple different play styles. Something that I think is a fair compromise for raiders and other players, and really ought to make the game more fun for all. See: https://politicsandwar.com/forums/index.php?/blog/1/entry-600-starting-a-podcast/

[Hooves]

On a related note, I'd like to point you all into the direction of this little podcast in which I detail a new development feature that will allow more a much smoother transition into a score change whilst maintaining multiple different play styles. Something that I think is a fair compromise for raiders and other players, and really ought to make the game more fun for all. See: https://politicsandwar.com/forums/index.php?/blog/1/entry-600-starting-a-podcast/

Podcasts?

 

Go on

[Kastor]

I tried liking you before that happened.

No one cares.

[Wayne]

On a related note, I'd like to point you all into the direction of this little podcast in which I detail a new development feature that will allow more a much smoother transition into a score change whilst maintaining multiple different play styles. Something that I think is a fair compromise for raiders and other players, and really ought to make the game more fun for all. See: https://politicsandwar.com/forums/index.php?/blog/1/entry-600-starting-a-podcast/

 

 

We'll only find the optimum build and strategy for our playstyle and you'll have to rewrite shit in a few months time.

[Beatrix]

Probably takes half a year for 2000 infra to pay itself. If you're not going to war for over half a year, you really can't talk about the war module. 

Furthermore, if you're willingly going to get 2000 infra you need to learn to face the consequences of having a high score.

 

I do agree that a nation that has to fight with someone w/ much higher cities is abusive, however, it is sustainable with proper response? I'm not quite sure about that. 

[Woot]

It seems to me your real problem is the +75%/-25% updeclare vs. downdeclare range, and the scores in your alliance.

An alliance like Arrgh can have dozens of members in range of a handful of TEst's weakest few, they can outnumber them and drag them down to the depths one at a time and there's no way for most of you to join the fight without extreme measures like selling all your infra. Isn't that the real problem, not the fact that Arrgh builds their nations to have a little more power per score point than most others do?

 

It's no coincidence that the leader of Alpha, who has the same kind of score distribution, had the exact same problem and made a similar thread demanding some random nerf to destroy raiding builds.

https://politicsandwar.com/forums/index.php?/topic/11406-easy-fix-for-the-low-infrahigh-city-count-exploit/

 

Maybe you should just become close friends with someone else who can cover your defenseless bottom? Or bring your bottom scores close together and arm them heavily to compensate for how alone they are.

 

I think your suggestion is lame because it would remove the choice players currently have to make between more economic or more military power. Relatively small nations with small incomes would be put on the same score range playing field as gigantic ancient whales that have three times as much income to spend on military units.

[Hereno]

It's no coincidence that the leader of Alpha, who has the same kind of score distribution, had the exact same problem and made a similar thread demanding some random nerf to destroy raiding builds.

https://politicsandwar.com/forums/index.php?/topic/11406-easy-fix-for-the-low-infrahigh-city-count-exploit/

Cities being 100 score each would prob. fix the issue too since cities are so much more strategic than infra.

What actually determines a nations fighting strength? Current military. What determines their current military? How many cities they have and how many units they have thus I propose the following chance to the scoring system:

 

Cities give 100 strength

heh

 

@sheepy: i don't feel like listening to a podcast can you write it down somewhere

Edited March 16, 2016 by Hereno

[seabasstion]

Probably takes half a year for 2000 infra to pay itself.

At 100% cost 10 to 2000 infra costs 17.5m.

 

Each 100 infra is worth about 20k not including resource earning. That is 400k a day. Roi = 43.75 days.

 

Any decent resource fund and gov't bonus management will bring that figure closer to a month.

 

I'm not arguing your other points but your half a year figure was quite overestimated

[Beatrix]

At 100% cost 10 to 2000 infra costs 17.5m.

 

Each 100 infra is worth about 20k not including resource earning. That is 400k a day. Roi = 43.75 days.

 

Any decent resource fund and gov't bonus management will bring that figure closer to a month.

 

I'm not arguing your other points but your half a year figure was quite overestimated

 

 

You should learn the difference between marginal cost & average cost, you use marginal cost to evaluate the break-even date of a project.

 

A fairly standard 2000 infra city earns 402,147.80 per day.

A fairly standard 1900 infra city earns 382,809.02 per day.

 

 

The difference in daily earnings is 402,147.80 - 382,809.02 = 19338.78 per day.

 

The cost of moving from 1900 infra to 2000 infra (MARGINAL COST) is 2,479,630.15. 2,479,630.15 / 19338.78 = 128 days = 4.27 months.

[Spooner]

At 100% cost 10 to 2000 infra costs 17.5m.

 

Each 100 infra is worth about 20k not including resource earning. That is 400k a day. Roi = 43.75 days.

 

Any decent resource fund and gov't bonus management will bring that figure closer to a month.

 

I'm not arguing your other points but your half a year figure was quite overestimated

 

Your math is incorrect. You need to make decisions on the margin. Half a year is roughly correct for 1900->2000 infra.

 

EDIT: Was beaten to this by the above post, worthy of a true MENSA member.

Edited March 17, 2016 by Syrup

[Magnanimus]

I see there are 3 problems with the game mechanics - 

 

1) Score calculation too heavily dependent on infra

2) War declaration range of 25% down declare and 75% up declare

3) First strike advantage

 

IMHO,

 

point 2 is a good way for beaten down nations to have a chance during a long war.

point 3 is a good mechanic for a war game.

 

The Score calculation needs to be checked as it is too heavily dependent on infra at the moment. I do not have anything against pirates as such, but I think I have seen cases where 3 nations with 10+ cities and less infra raiding nations with 7-8 cities and having more improvements (thereby having a larger military force).

In these cases the defender is at a huge disadvantage and the argument that allies can come to help does not work here. We need to find 3x3= 9 nations with equivalent strength (for similar military strength they have to have enough improvements and cities, that will not allow them to have a high amount of infra to be within the required down declare nation score range) to attack the 3 larger nations and apart from that, they need to hope that the raider's alliance members do not counter them.

 

I suggest reducing the infra component in the score calculation and transferring the equivalent amount towards cities and military components. This should be done to keep a balance between infra, cities and military

 

The math is for sheepy to do.

[seabasstion]

You should learn the difference between marginal cost & average cost, you use marginal cost to evaluate the break-even date of a project.

 

A fairly standard 2000 infra city earns 402,147.80 per day.

A fairly standard 1900 infra city earns 382,809.02 per day.

 

 

The difference in daily earnings is 402,147.80 - 382,809.02 = 19338.78 per day.

 

The cost of moving from 1900 infra to 2000 infra (MARGINAL COST) is 2,479,630.15. 2,479,630.15 / 19338.78 = 128 days = 4.27 months.

If we are really splitting hairs (which I love to do for the econ portion of this game) let me use my model of the game that I know is fully accurate for the first 1900 city I stumbled upon.

 

I'm not entirely sure how you determined what an average city for each infra level earns but that is not what I am observing and I think it is due to your figures maybe not factoring city age properly?

 

https://politicsandwar.com/city/id=20381

 

In its current form it makes

 

Cash: 359.7

Resources: 243.1

Total: 602.8k/day

 

At 100% infra cost (ignoring their cce and gov't bonus) and NOT adding any improvements

 

100 infra cost: 2.479m

Difference: 24.275k

Roi: 102.1 days

 

So yes, closer to 3 months which is still quite some time but not 4-6 like you report.

 

If we add in 2 farms though the new earnings is 44.875k (at these higher then average food prices and 2500 land). Roi = 55.3 days.

 

 

If I take land to 1000 and food price to 90 the net difference between the 1900 and 2000 infra models (with the 2 farms) is 27.791k with an roi of 89.3 days

 

This city is older though at 414 days compared to most cities I'm willing to wager.

 

If we take it down to a zero day old city the roi (no cce, no govt bonus, 1000 land 2 additional farms) is 98.57days

 

If we take the farms out (and instead did military improvements) roi = 133.48 (Yay we got to around the same figure!)

 

So there are a number of ways to approach the problem of return on 1900 to 2000 infrastructure and I think it will come down to what is actually an 'average' build at these infra levels.

 

That's actually a great question and I can put some good data together today on that since I honestly wouldn't be able to tell you right now, but I think in all fairness the way you are cutting it up with your 4month figure is pretty much worst case scenario for a city and I'm thinking it is due to city age increasing the economy .

 

Good stuff though I always love it when more mathematical approaches are done. I do understand marginal vs average cost. And it would probably be more appropriate to define the start point for your marginal cost at 1500 infra since that seems to be roughly the narrative of this thread where infra doesn't make sense. Actually, I'll use one of your cities for simplicity since I like real world examples (only 1200 right now)

 

https://politicsandwar.com/city/id=58170

 

I'm just going to post screenshots since this is very time consuming on mobile:

 

Your current earnings:

http://i.imgur.com/HxXM7wu.png

 

(Look into a police station btw)

 

Adding 800 infra without any econ improvements

 

http://i.imgur.com/SABAta0.png

 

You only have room for 3 more military improvements though, so I'll add in 6 oil wells, 3 iron mines, 3 farms, 1 subway, 3 drydocks

 

Even with the big cost of drydocks added which are a non earner, here is your return

 

http://i.imgur.com/NuNH9Ql.png

 

If we take the three drydocks out and add 3 more farms

 

http://i.imgur.com/2LTbV0N.png

 

Note that this actually has a quicker roi then building a 5th city just like you did the referenced city. I know there are many other reasons to consider cities outside of roi but I felt this to be interesting.

 

Again all of this is heavily dependent on resource market prices (which I used an average of the current market low sell and hi buy of each), but I think you may be doing yourself a disservice by looking at worst case scenario 1900 to 2000 infra return and using that as justification to stay at <1500 infra levels

 

For a 1500 infra build I chose this city at random

https://politicsandwar.com/city/id=46892

 

Building to 2000 infra with no cce, no gov bonus, 5 factories and 5 air force bases (no econ improvement added)

 

http://i.imgur.com/HNluRJ2.png

 

So the takeaway for me is yeah, when looking at worst case scenario there could be a 4.5 month return on investment when limited to your last 100 infra purchase with no econ improvements, but at the widely accepted 'optimal' levels of infrastructure in real world examples I can't approach that figure. It is quite difficult to get >3 month roi and requires no additional econ improvements being added.

 

 

I'm excited to get those average infra builds though, I think that will be a fun study. I'll do top 10 or 15 alliances probably

Edited March 17, 2016 by seabasstion

[Fistandantilus]

Seb is way to good at this game XD

[RagnarBuliwyf]

Has raising the project strength numbers been considered? I.E Nuke project should add 100 score, where as a munitions factory would add 20? I know it doesn't help the Arrgh issue, but it'd help somewhat with bigger nations dropping down during war. 

 

Just spitballing. 

[Prefontaine]

Has raising the project strength numbers been considered? I.E Nuke project should add 100 score, where as a munitions factory would add 20? I know it doesn't help the Arrgh issue, but it'd help somewhat with bigger nations dropping down during war. 

 

Just spitballing. 

 

Again it's not an Arrgh issue, it's a strength imbalance issue. Increasing certain projects strength value is a good idea as well. 

[Wayne]

Just have score based on military and projects and nothing else.  Take the infra out of the equation altogether.  That way the !@#$s that wanna farmville it up can do so well out of harms reach of the big nasty men wanting to come take their stuff.  The big nasty men get to fight those that have consciously entered the ring, looking to do battle, everyones a winner, baby!

Edited March 17, 2016 by Wayne

[Spooner]

Just have score based on military and projects and nothing else.  Take the infra out of the equation altogether.  That way the !@#$s that wanna farmville it up can do so well out of harms reach of the big nasty men wanting to come take their stuff.  The big nasty men get to fight those that have consciously entered the ring, looking to do battle, everyones a winner, baby!

 

In before dropping down to 0 projects/0 military --> declaring on 5 new players then building up a day's worth of soldiers to wreck all of them

[Fox Fire]

I think the problem with this game is obvious and fundamental. (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn&#39;t be bringing it up anyways) has the same issue in a different way. 

However it's posts like this, ideas specifically inspired by in game politics that are the absolute worst ideas and why this game can never be "fixed". In fact, I think this game has been progressively going downhill from a mechanic standpoint because nothing is ever consistent and a new problem is created anytime anyone fights a war. 

 

To sum all up, you're all a bunch of cry babies, really.

[Peter Quill]

No one cares.

Look who's talking.

[Prefontaine]

I think the problem with this game is obvious and fundamental. (That terrible game that is totally irrelevant and I shouldn&#39;t be bringing it up anyways) has the same issue in a different way. 

However it's posts like this, ideas specifically inspired by in game politics that are the absolute worst ideas and why this game can never be "fixed". In fact, I think this game has been progressively going downhill from a mechanic standpoint because nothing is ever consistent and a new problem is created anytime anyone fights a war. 

 

To sum all up, you're all a bunch of cry babies, really.

Implying this is a new problem.

Implying you're not against it for in game reasons.

Implying you aren't biased yourself.

[Beatrix]

Here's what I don't get prefontaine - could you explain how the situation is sustainable given proper response? That is, how can a nation radically updeclare due to low infra and keep on having enough troops/units/money to sustain itself.

 

It seems to me that you're judging the effectiveness or the imbalance based on peoples incompetence and inability to properly react against what Arrgh & others are doing. 

[seabasstion]

I think he is implying that this strategy of high city high improvement low infra is mostly sustainable by nations of this build preying on nations within the same score range.

 

Nations in the same score range largely have little chance to defend themselves since military strength is mainly tied to city numbers, and nation score is largely tied to infra numbers. This is the fundamental problem in many people's eyes in the quest for a reasonably fair war declaration range

 

The nations that are radically updeclaring as you call it are actually just declaring on nations more on par with their true military strength most of the time since military strength and nation score are largely unrelated. Additionally with the mechanics of the game heavily favoring the attacker this initial attack will go a long way toward victory, typically a crushing victory after the opening attack in a 1 v 1. and with the -25% downdeclare limitation it is difficult to find multiple militarized nations to counter that both have the military troops to do so while simultaneously being in declaration range for this proper response you speak of. It literally took test destroying multiple thousands of infra to be able to respond in a forceful meaningful way. I don't feel this should be a requirement to be able to craft a good response.

 

 

So in essence you answered you own question....with proper response it probably isn't sustainable but the mechanics of the game are very prohibitive of a proper response and is mainly supported by raiding inactives in a rotating gray cycle by nations more equal in score. It would be a tough sell to convince a reasonable person that most of these nations are hitting nations with at least 1.5x their score. Its probably a significant number (and I haven't looked into it so I very well could be wrong), but I'm willing to bet this isn't the case the majority of the time

 

But back on topic the updeclare really isn't the scope of this topic. (at the risk of speaking on behalf of pre) The topic at hand is largely over powered nations relative to their nation score peers being able to largely act with impunity at the current score formula. This is hard to justify as a fair system for a nation with twice the city count fighting someone. You can claim there is a proper response but from what I've seen it takes extreme counter productive measures to do so and if we take a step back and look at things objectively there probably wouldn't be many nations doing this if there wasn't a distinct advantage in doing so (and have been doing for some time now). That or the proper response is to follow a similar type build of purposefully stagnating your infra to keep a low infra score component. As a core fundamental principle I will disagree with a function or system that restricts game play options . I know I'm not a military wizard but these type of builds are largely impervious to conventional 100 infra = 2 improvement builds which is the standard designed model. If the standard designed model fails at a very high rate (against anything) I think it is reasonable to qualify this as an imbalance and perhaps the fundamental mechanisms should be evaluated

 

There is a fine line between using game mechanics to your advantage and using poor game mechanics to your advantage.

 

What actually defines a 'poor' mechanic is incredibly subjective but I think when you take everything else out of the equation it is hard to qualify a 1 v 1 fight where one nation can have twice as many cities and/or military as being fair.

 

Sure you can find examples where a proper downdeclare can be had and I can find an equal number of examples where a proper down declare can't be had. We shouldn't look at a few select cases where the system has demonstrated good gameflow results and use it to describe every case as a success.

[Prefontaine]

Here's what I don't get prefontaine - could you explain how the situation is sustainable given proper response? That is, how can a nation radically updeclare due to low infra and keep on having enough troops/units/money to sustain itself.

 

It seems to me that you're judging the effectiveness or the imbalance based on peoples incompetence and inability to properly react against what Arrgh & others are doing. 

 

Because I've done it and I know it. Or you could simply open your eyes.

 

https://politicsandwar.com/nation/id=15294

 

This nation made over 18M today alone simply from raids. This was just the first nation I even looked at. At the peak of my econ low military setup I was making 5M a day at 15 cities, the same amount this nation is. 

 

EDIT: And to boot, He has 200k more soldiers than I do. I have 3000ish more tanks, and 150ish more planes than him. Yet I am 1k stronger than he is in score rating, even though we have the same city count, yet I am unable to declare a war on him if I wanted. 

Edited March 18, 2016 by Prefontaine