Close War Mechanics

[Guest Frawley]

Every time there is a global war, we get the same sting of comments on the forums and discord.  There seem to be two key themes.

1. Shifting of Banks
2. Close Wars

Close wars have two outcomes, either both parties sit at 4 resistance each until the war expires, or one party bites the bullet and beige's the opposition.  This is akin the US forces waiting outside the gates of Baghdad while Iraqi forces are at the walls of Washington DC, it makes no sense.  And as is often complained about it results in people shifting alliance funds around to protect banks, be moving it into individual nations or setting up alliances called 'Partisan Sucks'.

Banks have a multitude of uses in PW, from private banks, to centralist governments, loans and all the rest, and I'd be very opposed to limiting their usefulness particularly given the majority of time in PW is not wartime.

Something that may be a plausible idea is to change the way beige and loots work for close wars.  There are three things that I think could assist in this manner.  Each step is optional but taken together they should make alliance wars make more sense, stop pointless bank shifting, and more accurately reflect the outcomes of each war.

1. If you are winning a war and you have less than 33 (1/3) resistance yourself, there will be no loot for you from either the nation or the Alliance Bank.
2. To balance this out, the opponent will not be beiged by your actions and thus will not get free time to rebuild.
3. If you have less than 17 resistance (1/6), when you 'defeat' your opposition the cool-down timer to fight the opposing nation will be reduced to 6 ticks so that you can rapidly continue your fight until a decisive winner is found. (Alternatively, you could eliminate it altogether for these cases, although that could have unintended consequences)

Taken together, these changes are small, but might be enough to stop some of the pointless heel-dragging during alliance wars and bank shifting.

[Micchan]

8 minutes ago, Frawley said:

1. If you are winning a war and you have less than 33 (1/3) resistance yourself, there will be no loot for you from either the nation or the Alliance Bank.

This kills the pirates

[Guest Frawley]

1 minute ago, Micchan said:

This kills the pirates

No, this kills the bad pirates, if you can't decisively beat your opponent why do you deserve booty.

[Micchan]

2 minutes ago, Frawley said:

No, this kills the bad pirates, if you can't decisively beat your opponent why do you deserve booty.

If it was 1 vs 1 yes, but pirates are always countered

[Ryleh]

5 minutes ago, Frawley said:

No, this kills the bad pirates, if you can't decisively beat your opponent why do you deserve booty.

I'd argue against this, as would all of the other highly successful pirates  Much of the time it is close because you have a marked disadvantage due to lack of military/counters/etc as Micchan said. 

[Buorhann]

So you're complaining when either 1) You sit on people or 2) They sit on you?

Hell, I told my guys to beige freely.  Might as well give people a chance to rebuild back up just to get stomped again.  Makes them waste their resources faster while also taking Infra damage on all their cities at the same time.

They also changed it where damage is less and looting is less.  Not quite sure where your Bank idea is coming from, really.

[Sweeeeet Ronny D]

5 minutes ago, Buorhann said:

Hell, I told my guys to beige freely.  Might as well give people a chance to rebuild back up just to get stomped again.  Makes them waste their resources faster while also taking Infra damage on all their cities at the same time.

I have been saying this for years!!!  finally someone else understands.

[Guest Frawley]

15 minutes ago, Ryleh said:

I'd argue against this, as would all of the other highly successful pirates  Much of the time it is close because you have a marked disadvantage due to lack of military/counters/etc as Micchan said. 

So what you are saying, is that the side being beaten through co-ordination, actually deserves the booty.  Sorry but I just don't agree, that makes no sense.

14 minutes ago, Buorhann said:

So you're complaining when either 1) You sit on people or 2) They sit on you?

Hell, I told my guys to beige freely.  Might as well give people a chance to rebuild back up just to get stomped again.  Makes them waste their resources faster while also taking Infra damage on all their cities at the same time.

They also changed it where damage is less and looting is less.  Not quite sure where your Bank idea is coming from, really.

The Bank issue is from other threads where people are complaining about the shifting of banks around to prevent loots.

Of course, if you are down declaring, it makes perfect sense for someone to half rebuild in two days of beige so you can stomp them again, if you are fighting up-range or evenly however that makes no sense, because either they can rebuy faster than you, or they will be able to damage your alliance mates more because of your beige.

Edited March 26, 2018 by Frawley

[Zed]

1. If you are winning a war and you have less than 33 (1/3) resistance yourself, there will be no loot for you from either the nation or the Alliance Bank.

What is this were a scaling percentage? Something akin to - you have 100 resistance yourself, you get 100% loot/bank. You have 43 resistance, you get 43%.

I think part of the issue is trying to sit on Blockades. It's really the only effective way to stagger and rotate conflicts to essentially eliminate one particular nation from the war.

 

And as is often complained about it results in people shifting alliance funds around to protect banks

What if Beiged nations were capped at the level of resources they could accept from a bank or player, for the duration of their time on beige? Some percentage level, perhaps, of their NS or other factor.

 

setting up alliances called 'Partisan Sucks'.

I don't see any problem with this, it's merely conveying the truth to the wider world.

[Dr Rush]

This is silly. While I agree that the stare contest thing is an issue, punishing someone for being victorious after an actual fight is not a solution.

[Guest Frawley]

8 minutes ago, Zed said:

What is this were a scaling percentage? Something akin to - you have 100 resistance yourself, you get 100% loot/bank. You have 43 resistance, you get 43%.

I think part of the issue is trying to sit on Blockades. It's really the only effective way to stagger and rotate conflicts to essentially eliminate one particular nation from the war.

Yeah, I could be down for some kind of scale.

8 minutes ago, Zed said:

What if Beiged nations were capped at the level of resources they could accept from a bank or player, for the duration of their time on beige? Some percentage level, perhaps, of their NS or other factor.

Its not just beiged nations though, there are multiple paths to hiding/moving banks

8 minutes ago, Zed said:

I don't see any problem with this, it's merely conveying the truth to the wider world.

Point taken

5 minutes ago, Dr Rush said:

This is silly. While I agree that the stare contest thing is an issue, punishing someone for being victorious after an actual fight is not a solution.

They are not actually victorious though, both parties are usually still attempting to kill off each others militaries.

^Would a single resistance number that went from -100 to 100 suit you more perhaps?

[Buorhann]

35 minutes ago, Frawley said:

The Bank issue is from other threads where people are complaining about the shifting of banks around to prevent loots.

Of course, if you are down declaring, it makes perfect sense for someone to half rebuild in two days of beige so you can stomp them again, if you are fighting up-range or evenly however that makes no sense, because either they can rebuy faster than you, or they will be able to damage your alliance mates more because of your beige.

1)  The Bank issue is a player's choice.  The game is literally built around the basis of looting the alliance bank through combat.

2)  Know what you can do with an alliance that has 120ish+ members of a close knit community?  Stagger your tier builds.

 

You're welcome.

[Guest Frawley]

4 minutes ago, Buorhann said:

2)  Know what you can do with an alliance that has 120ish+ members of a close knit community?  Stagger your tier builds.

 

You're welcome.

Yes because we are the only ones not beiging. KT, BK and even some of your own comrades are not beiging for the same reasons we don't. 

[Buorhann]

Sure, but are they complaining about it?  That's their choice not to beige.  They know the risks involved with that.  Hell, I used it on IQ sphere during the TJest conflict.

You have trigger happy people wasting their MAPs, and you're choosing not to beige because you know when you drag a higher city count nation down to your level - they can easily out buy your military quickly.  Which is all fine and dandy, but your sphere has made that choice to go mostly Air and mostly City 14 dominance.  If you're going to stick with that strategy, plan around it.

[Guest Frawley]

Its a suggestion that I think would make wars, make more sense.  It is not being suggested to be implemented for this war, or to make NPO's life easier and if it were put in place prior to the next one, our tactics would probably change as well for future wars.  One could certainly afford to be try different things if the repercussions for a close loss where not the same as being smashed.

Edited March 26, 2018 by Frawley

[Roq]

As a smaller nation in this "global war" thing, I've got to tell you, this would screw me the frick over, Fighting in wars with multiple people, around the same amount of military strength as you, is tiring, and it tends to leave your military weaker, meaning that if they are planning their hits wisely, you can be losing ten thousand soldiers to one of them, and then the larger one gets a moderate/immense triumpth, then you have to see if you have enough resources to rebuy, before you can attack them again, and it tends to be a complete hitting match between multiple people, not to mention, since they're could be multiple enemies, one enemy could fight you to a stand still, beige you, not get any loot, but still destroy a bit of your army, while the rest of them relentlessly attack your remaining soldiers until update, and then the wait for the other dude to attack, has ended, and you're still in war with maybe one of your enemies, constantly trying to re-buy and constantly only being able to get 18-0 32-0 whatever to beige, and your not getting a protection time, you're just losing a bunch of infrastructure, soldiers, and money, and it just leaves you in a bad spot. Just doesn't seem like this update would be much fun to the small nations.  

[Diocletian]

Sounds like a "my bloc will always suck at war, make people get less stuff from kicking our teeth in" sort of post.

[Yarr]

10 hours ago, Frawley said:

-----Snif----

You could nicely ask alex to delete arrgh?

[Buorhann]

13 hours ago, Frawley said:

Its a suggestion that I think would make wars, make more sense.  It is not being suggested to be implemented for this war, or to make NPO's life easier and if it were put in place prior to the next one, our tactics would probably change as well for future wars.  One could certainly afford to be try different things if the repercussions for a close loss where not the same as being smashed.

You're playing a game where a lot of stuff "doesn't make sense" when applied to real life stuff.

[Henrich]

8 hours ago, Buorhann said:

You're playing a game where a lot of stuff "doesn't make sense" when applied to real life stuff.

Can someone tell me how you get 9 tons of aluminum from 3 tons of bauxite? What's the other 66% of our aluminum? Why is it called aluminum if aluminum isn't the main ingredient?

[Phino]

just nerf the plane ...lol

or change plane, soldier, tank and ship with rock, paper and scissor 

[Holton]

21 hours ago, Buorhann said:

You're playing a game where a lot of stuff "doesn't make sense" when applied to real life stuff.

I'd rather just have balanced gameplay than attempt to create "realism" in my MMO persistent browser-based nationsim game.

 

Frawley I do actually appreciate you raising the issue of the staring contest, however I feel that removing the reward for the victor (bank loot) in a close war is not the answer. I also would like to point out that if you're getting beiged, regardless of closeness, your military is probably shot. Beige exists as a way to allow military to recover and is arguably the only mechanic preventing this game from being a complete steamroll of the losing side in large wars.

The fact that the playerbase can simply circumvent this by halting attacks at the last minute is more of a problem to me than anything else.

[Ogaden]

Beiging is good, get that loot, get out of the CN stagger mentality, it's toxic

[Guest Frawley]

6 hours ago, Ogaden said:

Beiging is good, get that loot, get out of the CN stagger mentality, it's toxic

In fairness, and this is not a slight at all, Arrgh play a different game to most of us, so while not doing long term damage to your opponent isn't relevant for you, it is for many of the alliances that play the politics side.

10 hours ago, Holton said:

I'd rather just have balanced gameplay than attempt to create "realism" in my MMO persistent browser-based nationsim game.

 

Frawley I do actually appreciate you raising the issue of the staring contest, however I feel that removing the reward for the victor (bank loot) in a close war is not the answer. I also would like to point out that if you're getting beiged, regardless of closeness, your military is probably shot. Beige exists as a way to allow military to recover and is arguably the only mechanic preventing this game from being a complete steamroll of the losing side in large wars.

The fact that the playerbase can simply circumvent this by halting attacks at the last minute is more of a problem to me than anything else.

Once again, if you are in a staring contest that either party can win, is one party really the victor, thats why I'm saying only for close wars does the loot and beige get nerfed.