A Treatise on the Duplicity of Anti-Pirate Activities

[greatkitteh]

There was only one positive scoring alliance on that side of the war ( Alpha ), the rest were either zeroed out militarily or were awfully close to it.

Which includes Mensa, Rose, VE, Vanguard, TKR, NK , etc. The treaty said no one lost the war, which is what Im going by.

Edited March 28, 2016 by greatkitteh

[Wayne]

I'm not entirely sure that's true. Most of the game's biggest wars (VE war being the main exception) were pretty even sided. Usually the winners had an advantage in a key tier, but not in another.

 

Marionette War: UPN/DEIC could have potentially fought back at the lower tiers, especially since many of their nations had beige protection, but the war ended before that could happen.

 

Proxy War: Guardian could have recovered somewhat and started pushing back against VE alongside Mensa after getting destroyed by VE's upper tier. Similarly Rose probably could have controlled the lower tiers against t$ although admittedly I haven't paid too close attention to that front. However, the war ended before that could happen.

 

Octoberfest: TEst, SK and t$ got beaten down pretty bad and were starting to push back. UPN's lower tiers likely could've beaten their opponents and started to push back.

 

168 day war: UPN and Roz Wei would have had a good change to push back in the lower tiers if the war had lasted longer. The situation with Guardian, Mensa and VE was very similar to Proxy war, except that Guardian didn't get knocked down as bad and had better war chests for rebuilding. We went from a low of about 35% max military* to about 55% when the war ended and would have rebuilt most of our nations' military given a couple more days and pushed back against much of VE's upper tier (which we were already starting to do with Mensa - see SRD, Samwise, MoonPie, Gogo).

 

 

Plus of course Arrgh/PP.

 

 

*By that I mean the % of the max military score that comes from ground and air (i.e. not including ships, missiles and nukes which aren't that important).

 

The only alliance I have seen make a fight back from getting the shit kicked out of em was Arrgh and could it really be classed as a 'fightback', it was more an annoyance then something deadly.  The rest you mentioned (apart from the Marionette War, I have no experience of that war), would have required someone else to ease the pressure.  None of the alliances you mentioned could have mounted any kind of comeback with their own power.  I was in Mensa for every single one of the wars you mentioned, we cruised through most of em, sniping down the bigger guys one by one, with very little to no threat.  That's not to say that the tide could not have been turned against us, with a decent counter, Shit Creek was but a paddle away. But again, that would have invovled outside forces being brought in to ease pressure.  I think I'm quite correct in stating that once you lose the first round, the second round is also lost, 99% of the time.

[Memph]

The main issue with fighting back at that stage is that all of your members have been knocked down, and continuing to fight you will do minimal damage. Whereas your enemies will have plenty of upper tiers left, which will go unchallenged, and obviously they are making significant money in the meantime. So in terms of relative advantage, it almost isn't worth it. So while it's possible to drag out some sort of stalemate, ultimately you are still the loser -- and maybe even by a larger margin.

It depends just how badly you and your allies were knocked down. If you're outnumbered in the upper tier but outnumber your opponents in the lower-mid tier then you can come back. If you're beaten in all tiers, not so much. With the Mensa/BK/Guardian vs VE front, the <1500 score nations mostly held out against VE and were able to push back. TBH even without BK, everything was pointing towards Guardian being able to recover anyways (Mensa never really lost much military), although BK certainly sped things up and saved us a lot of time and resources.

 

I do think we would have been able to take down most of VE's top tier eventually. The cost and time to do so would have been relatively high, but in a situation like that, it did mean that VE was not in a position to ask for reps. If their top tier had been able to keep us pinned down more effectively, they would have had a stronger bargaining position.

 

Same with Arrgh. If we had a stronger lower tier in the <1000 score range, their top tier would not have been able to recover. But we only outnumbered them in the top tier, so we only knocked down their top 30 nations or so while their bottom 40 controlled the lower tiers. We were winning at first, something along the lines of us knocking out their top 25-30 while they only had about 10-15 lower tier nations to knock out initially, but as their larger nations recovered they were able to take out many more nations.

[Wayne]

Technically, these "super nations" are exploiting the mechanics. The purpose of the current mechanics regarding improvements is so nations can fight back even after getting their armies and infra destroyed. The purpose is not so nations can stay in low infra forever and raid. 

 

Is Sheepy's suggestion going to [email protected]#$ the game up? I have no clue. I don't pay attention, and let smarter people figure it out. But something should be done about the situation because it can become a massive problem in the future. What if after the next war, an whole alliance that got stomped decides to implement this strategy? It becomes a nightmare. You might think it's okay because it forces people to coordinate, yada yada. But in reality, it forces an eventual [email protected]#$ in the middle tier. Suddenly, it becomes optimal for every alliance to have certain members sacrifice their nations in order to protect the alliance as a whole. You might think that's fine. I think it's dumb. 

 

And if a 12 city player can fight a 8 city player, something is wrong. 

 

 

As I've stated time and time again, having more slots then your infra can take is something that needs to be adressed.  It's easily adressed by having 1 improvement destroyed upon losing 50 infra.  That to me seems the most logical,  The problem comes from the extra improvements destroyed nations can carry.  Is there anything wrong with a nation having 800 infra with the correct amount of slots?  He would still be an 'Arrgh' type account, but he would be playing the game as 'intended' would he not?

 

If the alliance finds success in the low infra tactic then I say good luck to them, they are playing a viable strategy and if it proves successful in the long term then other alliances may need to adjust their builds.  There are no hard and fast rules of how best to play this game, that is one of it's appeals.

 

A 12 city player can only hit the 8 city player if he has a butt load of Infra boosting his score (as well as boosting his economy, that is the trade off), if the 8 city player is dumb enough to boost his overall score higher then his military power can handle, that is his fault.

[Memph]

The only alliance I have seen make a fight back from getting the shit kicked out of em was Arrgh and could it really be classed as a 'fightback', it was more an annoyance then something deadly.  The rest you mentioned (apart from the Marionette War, I have no experience of that war), would have required someone else to ease the pressure.  None of the alliances you mentioned could have mounted any kind of comeback with their own power.  I was in Mensa for every single one of the wars you mentioned, we cruised through most of em, sniping down the bigger guys one by one, with very little to no threat.  That's not to say that the tide could not have been turned against us, with a decent counter, Shit Creek was but a paddle away. But again, that would have invovled outside forces being brought in to ease pressure.  I think I'm quite correct in stating that once you lose the first round, the second round is also lost, 99% of the time.

Well definitely with Mensa-Guardian vs VE, Guardian could not have done it without Mensa. But that's because Guardian is a small top tier (ish) alliance while Mensa is a larger mid-tier alliance. Since the two of us were fighting on pretty similar battlefronts at the same time, you could think of us as a single force. Initial losses when VE declared were pretty heavy on both sides, but then eventually things started to shift against VE. Mid-tier nations could shift from mostly doing defensive counters and hitting smaller nations to going on the offensive, and bigger nations that got nuke beiged could also safely come out and go offensive.

 

I guess my point is that the current mechanics allow for a back and forth in wars. You can go from a stalemate situation or even one force having a slight edge, to the other force gaining the upper hand. Or you can have one side taking heavy losses at first, and then switch to a stalemate or having a slight edge against the former winners.

 

As opposed to a situation where the side that initially has the upper hand continues to have the upper hand and hold onto it with ease.

Edited March 28, 2016 by Memph

[Dan77]

People are placing way too much value on improvement slots as if they are some sort of strategic advantage.  I wouldn't care in the slightest if I lost improvement slots with infra.

 

I need 16 improvement slots per city.

5 x Barracks

5 x Factories

5 x AFB

1 x Power Station

 

So as long as I have 800 infra I can support what I need.  That's also around the number I require to support an almost maxed military due to population caps.

 

The extra improvement slots are unimportant to me.  They have little effect and are simply left over from a previous build.  It's a bonus to have them but by all means take them away when infra is lost as it seems only fair.  It wouldn't stop raiders from raiding though.

[Wayne]

Well definitely with Mensa-Guardian vs VE, Guardian could not have done it without Mensa. But that's because Guardian is a small top tier (ish) alliance while Mensa is a larger mid-tier alliance. Since the two of us were fighting on pretty similar battlefronts at the same time, you could think of us as a single force. Initial losses when VE declared were pretty heavy on both sides, but then eventually things started to shift against VE. Mid-tier nations could shift from mostly doing defensive counters and hitting smaller nations to going on the offensive, and bigger nations that got nuke beiged could also safely come out and go offensive.

 

I guess my point is that the current mechanics allow for a back and forth in wars. You can go from a stalemate situation or even one force having a slight edge, to the other force gaining the upper hand. Or you can have one side taking heavy losses at first, and then switch to a stalemate or having a slight edge against the former winners.

 

As opposed to a situation where the side that initially has the upper hand continues to have the upper hand and hold onto it with ease.

 

I don't and have never seen what you describe, maybe because I was insulated from the worst of it by Mensa being &#33;@#&#036;ing beasts.  My experience has been, I slap the shit out of you and you stay slapped till I either beige you where we wait out the beige counter and have someone slap you again or pass you along to someone else to carry on the slapping after the war timer is up.  Every fight I've had the side that has the upper hand continues to hold on to it and hold on to it with ease.

[Memph]

Which includes Mensa, Rose, VE, Vanguard, TKR, NK , etc. The treaty said no one lost the war, which is what Im going by.

 

No one won or lost the 168 day war, so its a little unfair to say "UPN could have not lost."

What's your point? My point is that if you look at the battlefield, UPN was losing against TKR and t$, with only a few top tier UPN nations doing well against nukers, and most likely would have been taken out once off beige. And that with good coordination, that could have potentially changed at least at the lower tiers.

[Wayne]

People are placing way too much value on improvement slots as if they are some sort of strategic advantage.  I wouldn't care in the slightest if I lost improvement slots with infra.

 

I need 16 improvement slots per city.

5 x Barracks

5 x Factories

5 x AFB

1 x Power Station

 

So as long as I have 800 infra I can support what I need.  That's also around the number I require to support an almost maxed military due to population caps.

 

The extra improvement slots are unimportant to me.  They have little effect and are simply left over from a previous build.  It's a bonus to have them but by all means take them away when infra is lost as it seems only fair.  It wouldn't stop raiders from raiding though.

 

tbh, having all those infra slots being used is costing you even more money per day.  So it's not even desirable to hold onto them.

[Dan77]

tbh, having all those infra slots being used is costing you even more money per day.  So it's not even desirable to hold onto them.

 

I think they are just about worth having but it's really no big deal.  More interestingly, the people who I'm fighting value their improvement slots much more than I do.  When I take out their infra and they start losing commerce, etc. it has much more effect on them than it does on me.  The people arguing for improvement slots to be removed think they're being anti-pirate but they'd actually be doing more harm to our opponents than they are to us.

[Memph]

Extra commerce and civil maybe but resource slots especially manufacturing can be quite lucrative at low infra levels. Especially if you have the projects, but even if you don't, the 6 best manufacturing improvements per city can net a 13 city nations about $800-900k/day. About $1.3m if you have the projects for those two improvements. Not game-changing but it's a nice bonus to what you make off raids.

[Wayne]

I think they are just about worth having but it's really no big deal.  More interestingly, the people who I'm fighting value their improvement slots much more than I do.  When I take out their infra and they start losing commerce, etc. it has much more effect on them than it does on me.  The people arguing for improvement slots to be removed think they're being anti-pirate but they'd actually be doing more harm to our opponents than they are to us.

 

I dunno, after the last war I was losing twice what I am now, when I got rid of commerce, civil and most of my manufacturing I saved myself about a million a day!  Sheepy's mechanics are so full of holes, it won't take someone long to figure out how to game the new system.  Let them cry for all the things they think will save them.

 

Extra commerce and civil maybe but resource slots especially manufacturing can be quite lucrative at low infra levels. Especially if you have the projects, but even if you don't, the 6 best manufacturing improvements per city can net a 13 city nations about $800-900k/day. About $1.3m if you have the projects for those two improvements. Not game-changing but it's a nice bonus to what you make off raids.

 

1.3m is what my daily upkeep is, so with all these extra slots, I'd be just breaking even.  Thats without factoring in the extra costs, like restocking, rebuilding and rearming.  It's not all sunshine, roses and resources at these levels.

Edited March 28, 2016 by Wayne

[Memph]

 

I dunno, after the last war I was losing twice what I am now, when I got rid of commerce, civil and most of my manufacturing I saved myself about a million a day!  Sheepy's mechanics are so full of holes, it won't take someone long to figure out how to game the new system.  Let them cry for all the things they think will save them.

 

 

1.3m is what my daily upkeep is, so with all these extra slots, I'd be just breaking even.  Thats without factoring in the extra costs, like restocking, rebuilding and rearming.  It's not all sunshine, roses and resources at these levels.

 

As I said it's a nice bonus that allows you to cover (or almost) the high upkeep costs, that way the raiding only has to pay for the ammo/gas and military purchase costs. Having manufacturing and raw production won't make the difference between UP and OP but it is a nice little bonus, without which you'd have to raid that much harder.

 

Resource production obviously has upkeep costs so if you're looking at your $$$ bill deleting them might look like it helps, but if you look at how much you can sell the resources for on the market, it can net you on the order of $1m depending exactly how many you have.

 

In the most extreme scenario, which someone could do but afaik no-one has done, is if you start out at high infra, then convert all your commerce and civil to resource and military improvements before joining Arrgh in anticipation of having your infra knocked down. A 13 city nation starting at 2000 infra/city could probably make a profit of about $3m off of those resource improvements.

Edited March 28, 2016 by Memph

[Bezzers]

To be honest, without war this game would be boring. You cant say the game is broken because someone found a good strategy in the mechanics of things. My personal thoughts are that while raiders are something of a pain in the ass to an economic build, its how they play. Its how they have fun. Some have fun building things, some have fun destroying things. You cant ask sheepy to fix shit that affects an entire community. It isnt fair. Sure they forced a few alliances to disband, and those people have a right to be pissed. Im not saying forgive them, far from it. Imo thats taking it too far. Im saying dont be salty about someone playing a game a little(okay, a lot) differently. Without raiders, it wouldnt be nearly as much of a challenge to grow. Sure it pisses me off too, doesnt mean I think raiders dont deserve to play how they want to play. without the raiders, it wouldnt be as much fun to try and grow away from their range.

[Buorhann]

Which includes Mensa, Rose, VE, Vanguard, TKR, NK , etc. The treaty said no one lost the war, which is what Im going by.

 

I'm commenting on the VE/Rose/UPN side of the conflict.  Only one alliance was pulling positive.

 

Whereas on the Mensa/Syndicate/BK side of the conflict, we had...  6 pulling positive iirc.

 

The White Peace was offered because nobody initially wanted the war as it was ( Although both Mensa and Rose wanted war, but not how it ended up ).  It was the easiest and quickest way to end it without going into the politiking of making alliances pay reps by individual cases, which would've ruined more relationships and really stagnated the treaty web development.

[Dalinar]

I'm commenting on the VE/Rose/UPN side of the conflict.  Only one alliance was pulling positive.

 

Whereas on the Mensa/Syndicate/BK side of the conflict, we had...  6 pulling positive iirc.

 

The White Peace was offered because nobody initially wanted the war as it was ( Although both Mensa and Rose wanted war, but not how it ended up ).  It was the easiest and quickest way to end it without going into the politiking of making alliances pay reps by individual cases, which would've ruined more relationships and really stagnated the treaty web development.

 

Alpha/NAC/Phoenix were all in the positive for Rose's side (3/13).

 

Our side had 8/11 go positive (in order of total net damage): tS/Mensa/BK/TKR/tC/Chola/Guardian/NK.

[Greene]

So just gonna have to dispute the claim that Cobalt (the 8th oldest alliance at time of disbandment) was a young alliance.

[Hereno]

You've gone off the deep end now. I had a big long reply, but that would just prompt you to reply again and I foresee a very circular debating coming soon that I want no part off. Have fun on that soap box, have fun buying your own hype, have fun shooting anyone trying to lend help to your claims, have fun on the island you want to be on. 

 

I momentarily forgot your personality, thanks for reminding me mate. Have fun. I'm out!

 

lol

 

yeah it's better to just stop digging yourself into a hole, i agree

[Prefontaine]

lol

 

yeah it's better to just stop digging yourself into a hole, i agree

 

[Hereno]

 

even if it was only a .gif you still responded to it, when you claimed to have not wanted to speak to me anymore in this thread, after insulting my ooc personality

 

so even if it was bait, which it wasn't, i still win. there's no need to be upset with me. i forgive you for your sins.

[Buorhann]

Alpha/NAC/Phoenix were all in the positive for Rose's side (3/13).

 

Our side had 8/11 go positive (in order of total net damage): tS/Mensa/BK/TKR/tC/Chola/Guardian/NK.

Forgot about NAC.

 

Thanks for checking and correcting me. Point still remains though.

[Doktor Avalanche]

even if it was only a .gif you still responded to it, when you claimed to have not wanted to speak to me anymore in this thread, after insulting my ooc personality

 

so even if it was bait, which it wasn't, i still win. there's no need to be upset with me. i forgive you for your sins.

No worries, Pre. Hereno assumes he is correct in all things and believes to reason is to accept his view as absolute.

Just let his wet-nurse wipe the drool from his mouth and let him continue to bang on the keyboard for further "fun" and move along.

[saeton]

after insulting my ooc personality

 

 

didn't know you had one. 

[Hereno]

keep going 

 

you're making me look wrong, trust me

[Odin]

1. Most, if not all, major alliances are on the Arrgh! Do Not Raid list. This is largely respected by the members of Arrgh!

2. This leaves primarily young, weak alliances to be raided by Arrgh!

3. While I was in Arrgh!, we ended up disbanding several young alliances just through raiding the shit out of them, not on purpose.[...]

 

The result of the system of affairs that exists right now is that large alliances as they exist right now are more or less immune to the piracy of Arrgh! due to the fact that Arrgh! is not strong enough to take on the world by itself.[...]

-> Sets everyone on DNR, complains about immunity to Arrrgh piracy.

-> Doesn't bother with big alliances before update, complains about not being able to after update.

-> Wants to take on the world by himself, gets content with young and inexperienced.

 

What a bunch of nice meme's i could made from these. For you i won't even bother with text.