PROJECT PROPOSAL - Naval Air Support System

[Buorhann]

16 minutes ago, Prefontaine said:

You're incorrect. This change only impacts air units while doing bombing runs against navy. All this will do is delay by maybe 1-2 attacks from 1 player the timeline on switching from dog fighting to bombing navy. You can completely avoid the impact of navy on air by simply doing dogfights until you have favorable numbers with the added bonus. 

It's utterly pointless and completely able to be worked around. You're just wrong on this one. 

>You're incorrect

>Delay 1-2 attacks

>Each MAP is literally 2 hours of real time

>An airstrike is 4 MAPs

Ok, I'm "incorrect" with my assessment of giving the player a chance to get on before he's zeroed out and cannot have a chance to regain control, or able to use his units.

[Prefontaine]

37 minutes ago, Buorhann said:

>You're incorrect

>Delay 1-2 attacks

>Each MAP is literally 2 hours of real time

>An airstrike is 4 MAPs

Ok, I'm "incorrect" with my assessment of giving the player a chance to get on before he's zeroed out and cannot have a chance to regain control, or able to use his units.

You are. The scenarios where this project will come into play is when you're losing the war, in those cases you're effectively 1v3 or more, delaying 1 attack has no bearing on the outcome of the war. I'd be more than thrilled if someone went for an extra naval attack rather than saving up for a nuke or missile attempt. If anything delaying nukes/missiles will likely cause them to do LESS damage in the course of the war while expending extra gas/ammo (which I know you care deeply about). 

 

You are entirely incorrect.

[Sir Scarfalot]

9 hours ago, Alex said:

Adding this project is a very minor expansion to the existing mechanics, and ultimately if you don't like it, you don't have to use it. So long as it isn't overpowered and gamebreaking, I'm of the opinion that more options > less options.

I would have to disagree with this particular point at the very least, Sheepy. Project slots are limited for the majority of the game but the largest players have more project slots than there are actually projects (current infra levels of most whales notwithstanding and the #1 player excepted of course, but that aside), which means that any project is no longer an option but in fact a straight potential bonus. Now, it may indeed not be overpowered nor gamebreaking, but when there's no reason not to grab a bonus then it's not really an option at all but just another cherry for the top.

Ultimately I'm with @Sketchy on this one, and I don't really see any need to expand on the points he's already made so I'll just leave it at that.

Edited January 23, 2019 by Sir Scarfalot
Circumstances

[Azaghul]

I don't oppose this change but I agree with Prefontaine:

8 hours ago, Prefontaine said:

Then this is not a change that will have the result you're looking for. This change does not create different scenarios in war. A change in which Naval can attack air, or ground could attack air would create different scenarios. Creating a project which has such a niche effect that, even when it does come into effect, does nothing to swing the outcome of a war. No one is bombing navy while a significant air still exists unless they're trying to blockade a bank holder. 

It helps slightly to force people to consider the extra attrition against their air when bombing navy, but overall the effect would be pretty marginal.

This isn't really adding options in a war by war scenario, just an extra project for people to buy at a high level that they will buy when they have space.

If Alex really wants to create more options, this is the way to do it:

6 hours ago, Melyaj Vijsopj said:

Why not just different kind of ships to the game like air craft carriers could fight air  submarine to give some spy bonus and battle ships could attack tanks with having different strategies of each nation’s navy could be cool 

2

Different compositions of ships, with the same overall ship limit, would do far more here.  Allow someone to buy a type of ship that does a lot of damage to attacking planes and/or reduces the impact of oncoming air attacks, but doesn't aid in navy vs navy battles or infra damage to cities.

[GoomyMan]

I like the idea of the project, but I agree that the air defense per ship should be 1:2. The cost seems reasonable as well =]

 

Disclaimer: I am not Goomy 

[Serval]

7 hours ago, Melyaj Vijsopj said:

Why not just different kind of ships to the game like air craft carriers could fight air  submarine to give some spy bonus and battle ships could attack tanks with having different strategies of each nation’s navy could be cool 

This is a solid suggestion. I think allowing players to customize how they fight is good for the game.

Also planes shouldn’t be nerfed, but their score should reflect their power. Same w every other unit. 

Another good project would be Spy Satellites. IMO, spies are merely an accessory unit and have little to no empact on who wins the war. IRL, intelligence war is king. If you have the project you go from killing 1-5% of enemy units during sabotage to something like 5-10%. 

You could also just boast it to 5-10% w/o the project, or add it to Intelligence Agency

Edited January 23, 2019 by Serval

[Alex]

8 hours ago, Murtaza said:

One amendment i would like to do in your proposal is reducing the aircraft carrier or anti air gun in ships or whatever you are planning to do in this project. So you should change the aspect of turning one ship equivalent to 1 aircraft,  instead you can turn 20% or 25 % of naval ships who acquire the ability to fight the air. 
thanks.

This is only for defending against airstrikes where the enemy is targeting your ships. It's already a pretty minor buff that only gets used in niche battle cases, in my opinion I don't see any reason it would need to be nerfed further to be implemented.

8 hours ago, Melyaj Vijsopj said:

Why not just different kind of ships to the game like air craft carriers could fight air  submarine to give some spy bonus and battle ships could attack tanks with having different strategies of each nation’s navy could be cool 

That's a huge amount of added complexity, and definitely deserves a separate discussion in a separate topic. This thread is about a minor project addition - adding new military units would drastically change the war system and probably require a complete rebalance which is neither easy nor fun (for me or the players, generally.)

6 hours ago, Curufinwe said:

If you're of the opinion that this only constitutes a very minor alteration to the mechanics (and therefore is positive under your more > less options matrix), why are we having this conversation at all?  Numerous posters have pointed out unaddressed issues with a project buffing ships and the only person who has voiced full throated support is Buorhann, but if you're planning to go with 'if you don't like it, don't use it' (which seems to be how you're leaning, despite the criticism), why waste everyone's time soliciting feedback?  Seems more like the illusion of a consultative process than the reality (which I mean I'm fine with in practice, but if you're going with that don't waste my time asking for input if it's not going to matter either way ? )

Which problems with this suggestion specifically have I ignored? Most of the "feedback" has been unrelated to the suggestion, and just spinoff ideas for completely new or separate suggestions unrelated to the project. I am asking for input in this particular thread about this particular suggestion, not every player's solution to whatever issue that player thinks the problem with the game is. We can definitely have those discussions, but the point of threads/topics in this subforum is that we separate the discussions to keep things organized.

One point I did not address was that yes, large nations do have more slots to fill than projects and will just buy this for no other reason than they can afford it and there's no reason not to. I understand and agree with that, and ideally we'd have a lot more projects so that that's not necessarily the case, and there is some opportunity cost and decision-making involved in deciding which projects to purchase. However, to get to that point we have to get these suggestions through the feedback phase so they can be implemented in-game.

[Lu Xun]

Pragmatically, the biggest problem is that it favors large nations and makes wars more expensive. To fight most effectively with naval components, you need 1500 infra, which means that you spend like 6 mn per city  If you fight at the 800 infra point, as is Arrgh's preference, it's only around 1 mn per city. If you fight at the 500 infra point, as we are seeing with some TKR nations, it's less than 400k or so per city. If you fight at 1k infra point, it's around 2mn per city. This is one of the reasons people don't go navy heavy, because heavy navy is extreme in costs.

 

Ideally, if you wanted to re-balance the war system, you'd try to create a war system where players end up specializing in one unit type or another, with multiple players forming a combined arms team. This would require more coordination and tactics than what is seen currently, but also requires a few balance changes. First, max mil should be more actively discouraged. This is actually a problem with 1500 infra builds; the heavy expense needed to up a city to that point implies that players are more incentivized to spend money to reach max mil configurations. Second, emphasis should be more placed on single unit types (air only) than on two unit compositions (air ground, air navy soldiers).

[Noctis Anarch Caelum]

1 hour ago, Alex said:

This is only for defending against airstrikes where the enemy is targeting your ships. It's already a pretty minor buff that only gets used in niche battle cases, in my opinion I don't see any reason it would need to be nerfed further to be implemented.

That's a huge amount of added complexity, and definitely deserves a separate discussion in a separate topic. This thread is about a minor project addition - adding new military units would drastically change the war system and probably require a complete rebalance which is neither easy nor fun (for me or the players, generally.)

Which problems with this suggestion specifically have I ignored? Most of the "feedback" has been unrelated to the suggestion, and just spinoff ideas for completely new or separate suggestions unrelated to the project. I am asking for input in this particular thread about this particular suggestion, not every player's solution to whatever issue that player thinks the problem with the game is. We can definitely have those discussions, but the point of threads/topics in this subforum is that we separate the discussions to keep things organized.

One point I did not address was that yes, large nations do have more slots to fill than projects and will just buy this for no other reason than they can afford it and there's no reason not to. I understand and agree with that, and ideally we'd have a lot more projects so that that's not necessarily the case, and there is some opportunity cost and decision-making involved in deciding which projects to purchase. However, to get to that point we have to get these suggestions through the feedback phase so they can be implemented in-game.

I think your original idea with each ship being worth at least 2 & half the cost would be good idea. Although would be kind of pointless if they just count for one to use project slot unless someone has extras 

[Azaghul]

Getting more at what Prefontaine is saying, people generally only start using airstrikes to target ships (or tanks) when they are already dominant in the air and the battles are already very one-sided.  At that point, taking out a few extra planes on defense doesn't matter that much in most circumstances, because of the way casualties work you're still going to generally lose significantly more planes than your attacker.  The only scenario where it is likely to make a meaningful difference is one where you're facing an opponent who has more planes than you, but he also more wars than you and you can wear him down with numbers.  And in that scenario, he could choose not to bomb ships.

One way I think this could be useful in more circumstances is instead of or in addition to damaging planes, it reduced the number of ships destroyed in an air attack by something like 30-50%.  That would have a more practical impact IMO.

As for making the game involve more choices and considering opportunity costs, one thing you could do is have a series of projects along these lines and cap the number of those types of projects that any nation can have.  For example, you could have a project that does the same for tanks, and only allow someone to buy the project that protects tanks OR the project that protects ships.

[Lu Xun]

Except that, well, IQ would end up just spamming the planes projects, no? In reality, in raids, the objective is to garner as much money as possible (ground), in the control phase of a war, the objective is to remove the enemy's military as fast and as cheaply as possible (aircraft), and in the attrition phase of the war, the objective is to deal as much cash damage as possible (aircraft, navy vs infrastructure). The problem is that the war system is fundamentally not balanced; given the importance of control and attrition, aircraft is most important because what it's good at is what is most important in wars.

[Buorhann]

2 hours ago, Azaghul said:

Getting more at what Prefontaine is saying, people generally only start using airstrikes to target ships (or tanks) when they are already dominant in the air and the battles are already very one-sided.

One way I think this could be useful in more circumstances is instead of or in addition to damaging planes, it reduced the number of ships destroyed in an air attack by something like 30-50%.  That would have a more practical impact IMO.

And yet Planes will do damage with no consequences to it once they get to that point.  This project would create some damage to them.  May not be completely game changing, but it doesn't need to be.  The second statement I quoted from you isn't a terrible idea though, would probably be better in fact.

As Alex already stated, some of you are ignoring the idea of the project and instead looking at this as rebalancing Planes.  Most of the replies seem centered on my perspective, not Alex's.  Which I'm not oppose to, I love to debate/argue.  So let's circle back to some stuff.

>Alex wants more project ideas, presents this one

Somebody asked Alex what he wants out of this, he's looking to expand the Project list.  Nobody has yet to bring up project ideas or an actual reason why this particular project is bad.  People say it won't have any effect, ok then, don't build it.  It's not forcing you to.  This particular project isn't a "Be All, End All" solution to the imbalance issues of the military aspect.

While I'd argue with you all on what this project could do, that's not the center piece of this request.

>You're incorrect Hippo

@Prefontaine, I could go on about your criticisms on this but it seems that's mostly all you want to do.  You're not exactly stating why I'm incorrect with my earlier backing of this project and what it would do.  You're also not exactly stating why the addition of this project idea is bad.  If people want to burn a project slot for this so an opponent's air cannot strike ships with impunity, then so be it.  It doesn't alter your own decision making, but it would alter someone else's.

Personally, if the ratio isn't terrible, I'd use it.  Any capability to damage an opponent's Airstrike would be good imo.

>Project slots

Right now we have 8 Econ, 2 Defense, and 4 Offensive Projects.  The 2 Defense and 2 of the 4 Offense "counter" each other.  1 helps with rebuys, the other helps with spies.  Nothing else affects Soldiers, Tanks, Ships, or Planes.  Other than the addition of cheaper Tanks, changing beige mechanic, adding in Improvement destruction, and reducing Tank damage from Ground Attacks - nothing else has changed the military side of this game since 2015 (Or hell, even earlier).

When Alex introduced the idea of perks, people shit all over that.  Now with Alex introducing this, people are shitting all over it without even really addressing it.

Needless to say, I'd personally welcome any change now to the military units.  Anything would be better than the cookie cutter Dogfight, Dogfight, Airstrike Tanks, Airstrike Ships spam.  Whether it's through Project ideas, perks, or hell, even making it a Paper, Rock, Scissors game where any unit can attack any other unit.

 

@Alex - Do you have the capability of pulling up the total amount of military in the game and rank the amount of each type of attack done in the game?  I think that'd be a interesting info graphic to see.

Edited January 23, 2019 by Buorhann

[丂ħ̧i̧₣ɫ̵γ͘ ̶™]

I vote yes on it

I could see it being used when you have a plane double buy stacked and you get 3 buddies to counter someone.

Easily could turn an update airstrike into a closer match up which would be enough to prevent another enemy airstrike or at least make them lose, get Pyrrhic, or moderate.

 

You can always strike away at ships and planes with spies too. (albeit slower)

[Zei-Sakura Alsainn]

Hold up - doesnt everyone always complain that perks never came instead of that it was suggested? That's been my experience.

[Alex]

11 hours ago, A Boy Named Crow said:

Ideally, if you wanted to re-balance the war system, [...]

I am not trying to rebalance the war system. That is not what this suggestion is about.

7 hours ago, Buorhann said:

And yet Planes will do damage with no consequences to it once they get to that point.  This project would create some damage to them.  May not be completely game changing, but it doesn't need to be.  The second statement I quoted from you isn't a terrible idea though, would probably be better in fact.

As Alex already stated, some of you are ignoring the idea of the project and instead looking at this as rebalancing Planes.  Most of the replies seem centered on my perspective, not Alex's.  Which I'm not oppose to, I love to debate/argue.  So let's circle back to some stuff.

>Alex wants more project ideas, presents this one

Somebody asked Alex what he wants out of this, he's looking to expand the Project list.  Nobody has yet to bring up project ideas or an actual reason why this particular project is bad.  People say it won't have any effect, ok then, don't build it.  It's not forcing you to.  This particular project isn't a "Be All, End All" solution to the imbalance issues of the military aspect.

While I'd argue with you all on what this project could do, that's not the center piece of this request.

@Alex - Do you have the capability of pulling up the total amount of military in the game and rank the amount of each type of attack done in the game?  I think that'd be a interesting info graphic to see.

attacks dataset.xlsx

5 hours ago, Akuryo said:

Hold up - doesnt everyone always complain that perks never came instead of that it was suggested? That's been my experience.

This is off-topic, but it was suggested by players, and at least twice I submitted a very detailed proposal and even went so far as to start in-game development when people hated my proposals on the forum and made comments like "I'd rather have no perks than this" and so the idea was nixed (at least two separate times.)

[Sweeeeet Ronny D]

sounds ok to me.

[Shiho Nishizumi]

Eh, this is a fairly minor and niche addition which wouldn't really upset the meta or system too much, if at all. Furthermore, having air take some sort of damage, even if it's chip damage, from anything other than other air and spy ops is always good. So it should be a fairly positive, albeit minor, addition.

The main question I have @Alex is; weren't there other project ideas that are more worthwhile to be implemented first? The Federal Reserve (or whatever other name it also had) comes to mind.

[hope]

It's an alright idea. What if the ships acted as aircraft defensively in all air attacks instead of just against ships, so that it's more than just a niche project? Also, a lower cost would be nice so that it's more accessible to smaller nations (10-15 cities). I don't really see any reason to buy this project over any others when slots are limited. Glad to see some changes proposed to the game.

[Viselli]

I like this as a project idea. We could have a similar one for tanks or maybe a combined air defense one? 

[Kryptonox]

I like this idea it could be really war efficient for battle like knightfall. Also, I was at 1,700 score and since Knightfall i went down to 503.22 score and I need money but I am a poor nation. So Alex can you make something for the poor nations to get to become rich or just so that they can get better?

Edited January 24, 2019 by Kryptonox
I messed up

[Buorhann]

4 hours ago, Kryptonox said:

I like this idea it could be really war efficient for battle like knightfall. Also, I was at 1,700 score and since Knightfall i went down to 503.22 score and I need money but I am a poor nation. So Alex can you make something for the poor nations to get to become rich or just so that they can get better?

Join an alliance that can teach you how to do better.

[WISD0MTREE]

19 hours ago, Kryptonox said:

I like this idea it could be really war efficient for battle like knightfall. Also, I was at 1,700 score and since Knightfall i went down to 503.22 score and I need money but I am a poor nation. So Alex can you make something for the poor nations to get to become rich or just so that they can get better? 

Buor's advice is right. I used to think alliances didn't make too much of a difference. Now, I know they can make a huge difference.

14 hours ago, Buorhann said:

Join an alliance that can teach you how to do better.