Make the game more fun for people who are losing a war

[Lu Xun]

PnW has always had a slippery slope problem. Once you start losing in a war, it's very hard to climb back, and in monitoring certain alliances' lower tier, I notice that even if a lot of people keep on fighting, their efforts are relatively futile because they simply can't get air up, tanks up, or so on, before the opponent just squashes them. In this kind of scenario, I hate to say it, but it actually makes sense to go inactive or VM, because it's hard to do appreciable retaliatory damage instead of bouncing around like a meat puppet.

This is, in my view, the biggest problem with PnW. Sure, long-term, you should be able to attrition a statistically inferior opponent to death, but short-term, it should be possible to have highly-skilled groups of players make interesting last stands. We are, of course, seeing this in the TKR-sphere upper tiers, where Guardian and Grumpy are delaying what should be an inevitable loss because they actually outnumber SyndIQ in the top tiers, but everywhere else, it's just a plain slaughter.

One way to fix this might be to remove the militarization system, where it currently takes 5 days to get a full fleet of aircraft and tanks up. This would end up, however, making the game highly attritional and linear, since this would result in players with more cities and deeper alliance banks simply crushing players with less cities and shallower alliance banks.

Another way might be to remove information and further delinearize the game. Right now, I can quickly go through a bunch of nations, and get information on how many tanks, aircraft, soldiers, and navy a player has. This gives the attacker an easy way to determine which match-ups would be favorable, and makes declared wars more likely to be a curbstomp. Removing military numbers, except for a military score, or intel allowed to alliance government officers, would make declarations more risky and give the defender a better chance at scoring an upset. The nation you may be declaring on, for instance, may have 40% of each of your assets, meaning that the opponent would not be able to win any fight against you. Or, the opponent might have an overwhelming superiority in one troop type, meaning that once you go to war, you'll end up losing battles of that type uncontrollably unless you get counters to assist you.

A third way might be to implement map-based declaration ability, encouraging alliances to seek local numerical advantage. This would come with free nation moves, albeit limited by time (say, 10 days), and the radius of offensive engagement would be determined by either a hard-baked factor, say you can only declare on nations, say, 500 km from you, or a player-adjustable factor, say, you can only declare on nations depending on how much transport ability you have, meaning that large nations would end up being in truly global wars, while smaller nations would have to relocate constantly to keep up with the front. This would, of course, end up creating difficulty for raiders, which is a key element of the low-tier game, so perhaps the "raid" war type could be adjusted accordingly (less ability to deal damage, including to troops, less or no location limitation)?

I don't know. To date, the only sphere that has not yet been the victim of an uncontrolled curbstomp is core Syndisphere. IQ has been stomped repeatedly, Arrgh has been stomped repeatedly, Radiosphere is in the process of being stomped, and TEst and its aligned treatyless have been stomped. I think that given how most remaining players now have some experience of what it's like to be on the end of a losing war, and given how politics are progressing, the next global war might not be simply a reroll of TKR. It is thus in most players' interest to find a solution for PnW's curbstomp problem, because for all they know, they could be next.

Edited October 31, 2018 by Inst

[The Mad Titan]

Or leave the mechanics as is rather than crying when you're the ones getting beat on. 

There are already numerous ways nations losing wars can still do damage such as double buys, nukes, and missiles.

No need to mess up the system more. 

Edited October 31, 2018 by The Mad Titan

[Exar Kun -George]

Oh the “we’re losing, please help us Alex” post has arrived

Edited October 31, 2018 by Pestilence

[Guest Curufinwe]

2 minutes ago, The Mad Titan said:

Or leave the mechanics as is rather than crying when your the ones getting beat on. 

There are already numerous ways nations losing wars can still do damage such as double buys, nukes, and missiles. 

 

Or using some sort of strategy to clear a safe zone and push up and/or down.  There's plenty of stuff you can do to equalize damage when you're conventionally outnumbered.  It's not our fault certain AAs are just laying there getting rolled instead of, you know, adopting a strategy outside of their traditional comfort zone ?

[RainbowColor]

13 minutes ago, Pestilence said:

Oh the “we’re loosing, please help us Alex” post has arrived

Oh the “we’re *losing*, please help us Alex” post has arrived

[Guest Curufinwe]

2 minutes ago, ✯Rainbow✯ said:

Oh the “we’re *losing*, please help us Alex” post has arrived

This nation is in Vacation Mode for the next 231 turns. This nation cannot be attacked or traded with during that time.

[Bart]

Plus the entire beige mechanism already provides a fair amount of protection if you use it correctly.

[Sir Scarfalot]

20 minutes ago, Bart said:

Plus the entire beige mechanism already provides a fair amount of protection if you use it correctly.

Actually, it doesn't, and that's the single biggest problem. Beige discipline, that is to say the winning side avoiding completing their wars with attacks, allows nations to be completely pinned if they don't have the MLP and/or NRF. This kills the fun for both sides and heavily inhibits interesting gameplay.

I've suggested this before, but I'll suggest it again: Wars should be won based not merely on who first reduces the enemy's resistance to 0, but also whoever has the highest resistance at the end of the war. That way SOMEONE's going to get beiged and the whole bullcrap 'pinning' strategy gets put aside in favor of actually playing.

8 hours ago, Inst said:

-wall o text-

See, these are fair points and the problem does indeed exist as you say. That said, you're a 1 day old nation in TKR, in the middle of a dogpile not favoring an alliance that historically declares dogpiles almost exclusively. Those factors undercut your credibility rather a lot, I'm afraid.

Edited October 31, 2018 by Sir Scarfalot

[Bart]

16 minutes ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

Actually, it doesn't, and that's the single biggest problem. Beige discipline, that is to say the winning side avoiding completing their wars with attacks, allows nations to be completely pinned if they don't have the MLP and/or NRF. This kills the fun for both sides and heavily inhibits interesting gameplay.

I've suggested this before, but I'll suggest it again: Wars should be won based not merely on who first reduces the enemy's resistance to 0, but also whoever has the highest resistance at the end of the war. That way SOMEONE's going to get beiged and the whole bullcrap 'pinning' strategy gets put aside in favor of actually playing.

I would tend to agree with you, but then I see a lot of folks getting beiged still. Not all alliances are sufficiently disciplined to follow orders in this regard.

[Sweeeeet Ronny D]

We are beiging everybody!  You get a beige, and you get a beige... EVERYBODY GETS A BEIGE!

Buy one Grumpy beige, get 2 free!  All for the low low price of 4-5% of your infra in each of your cities!

 

[Sir Scarfalot]

Just now, Sweeeeet Ronny D said:

We are beiging everybody!  You get a beige, and you get a beige... EVERYBODY GETS A BEIGE!

Buy one Grumpy beige, get 2 free!  All for the low low price of 4-5% of your infra in each of your cities!

Well, your side can get away with it on account of having higher potential miliarization per capita and overwhelming tier consolidation at your end, whilst your allies can and should be beiging since there's no possible chance for a pin anyway and therefore there's nothing to be lost by going for the extra net damage and minor loot.

Incidentally I'll buy

[Bart]

1 minute ago, Sweeeeet Ronny D said:

We are beiging everybody!  You get a beige, and you get a beige... EVERYBODY GETS A BEIGE!

Buy one Grumpy beige, get 2 free!  All for the low low price of 4-5% of your infra in each of your cities!

 

Based on this, would I be right in stating the following?
Every beige is sacred,
Every beige is good,
If a beige is wasted,
Ronny D gets quite irate.
 

[Sweeeeet Ronny D]

1 minute ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

Well, your side can get away with it on account of having higher potential miliarization per capita and overwhelming tier consolidation at your end, whilst your allies can and should be beiging since there's no possible chance for a pin anyway and therefore there's nothing to be lost by going for the extra net damage and minor loot.

Incidentally I'll buy

join the war, triple your score, and ill see what i can do for ya!

[Thor]

Omfg. Are you all excavating salt mines now? Holy crap I didn't think there could be anymore salt. Play the game and fight. We all have lost and rebuilt at some point. Grow a pair and stop crying.

[KingOfBlueBears]

I think this is a horrible idea, I’m sorry you people are salty little boys that can’t handle a defeat but it will be unfair if Alex does a change just to make it so people can try even less and then magically come back out. We are winning because we are organized and we were prepared while you are not. So how about you stop white knighting for tkr and face the fact that they are losing. Yes it’s hard to come back out when you are losin because well frankly you are losing for a reason and that same reason can make it so you can’t climb back out, your idea of a fix is dumb and will just make Wars a spam war of who holds more shit on hand and who can build more and stretch individual wars and not the big war. What next you gonna ask for Anti Air tanks and ships? Honestly it’s just petty that you feel you need to white knight for these salty losers. You are in their discord 24/7 just white knighting them oh wait didn’t you leave npo just to help them, that explains why you white knight. Next is your second idea, that might work but won’t matter in the slightest as spies exist and that feature would just be transferred into spies which has been showed by this war some people don’t even build spies to begin with. Finally, your third idea is also dumb because the map declarations wouldn’t make sense as all since planes exist, boats exist many ways could justify this way of war. If someone wishes to go into VM or go inactive good for them they are just as salty as the ones crying for help when they lose as they can’t handle losing their process well guess what it’s apart of the game deal with it. If Alex did this it would just show bias and blatant ignorance which I hope to Christ he wouldn’t act like as a game dev.

Edited November 1, 2018 by KingOfBlueBears

[Lu Xun]

@KingOfBlueBears

 

You weren't around then, but I was white-knighting for VE back when Syndisphere was first forming as well. I'm just playing to be a white knight.

 

As for the actual issue, please note that my complaint is about "fun", not winning. The SynDIQ sphere has around 20000 cities, the TKR-sphere has around 5000 cities. The problem is, is the game fun for the victim of a curbstomp? That's the name of this thread; i.e, it's not so that VE, UPN, NPO, TEst, TGH, or TKR can somehow win a war when the politicians have done their job to make sure the war is heavily-stacked against them. It's to make losing fun; i.e, to make it easier for more people to make non-symbolic gains as they're losing.

 

As is, first, only 25% of nations in this game exceed 6 months of age. Second, the most reliable form of fun players can have while being rolled is grabbing a friend and chaining baseball games.

Edited November 1, 2018 by Inst

[KingOfBlueBears]

Winning to most is fun and you can not deny that. The fact is it is not our fault that we felt it was time for tkr to be knocked down a knotch. With the way the game was structured if you lose it loses the fun as you have to rebuild your nation and/or alliance back up. No it is not fun for the person being curbstomped but the game was structured that way, maybe if they made more allies they wouldn’t be curb stomped or was better prepared for this to make it more ‘fun’. You also have to keep in kind ‘fun’ is subjected what you feel is fun and what I think is fun is different, yes you are right I should have put fun and not win but again ‘fun’ is a word based on the opinion of that person. For the game to be fun there needs to be more strategy or more skill involved not simply the reasons you stated as those can just lead back to this place. Since you edited your post when I was writing mine time to edit mine, okay this game isn’t for everyone dude, not everything in the game is ‘fun’, only certain people play the game for long period of time as it could be ‘fun’ for them. Also yes I was not around back then but I’m not talking about the old times I’m talking about the present and present state of the game.

Edited November 1, 2018 by KingOfBlueBears

[Shadowthrone]

28 minutes ago, KingOfBlueBears said:

You are in their discord 24/7 just white knighting them oh wait didn’t you leave npo just to help them

*scratches head* 

Don't think Inst was ever in NPO. 

[Ashland1]

A precondition to any peace negotiations will Inst taking tasteful videos of himself in a baby's bonnet saying "Waaaahh! Waaaah! Waaaah!" repeatedly for no less than thirty seconds; no more than four hundred seconds.

[Guest Curufinwe]

21 minutes ago, Inst said:

@KingOfBlueBears

 

You weren't around then, but I was white-knighting for VE back when Syndisphere was first forming as well. I'm just playing to be a white knight.

 

As for the actual issue, please note that my complaint is about "fun", not winning. The SynDIQ sphere has around 20000 cities, the TKR-sphere has around 5000 cities. The problem is, is the game fun for the victim of a curbstomp? That's the name of this thread; i.e, it's not so that VE, UPN, NPO, TEst, TGH, or TKR can somehow win a war when the politicians have done their job to make sure the war is heavily-stacked against them. It's to make losing fun; i.e, to make it easier for more people to make non-symbolic gains as they're losing.

I mean it's TKRs fault they managed to 1) alienate the majority of Orbis to the point that a coalition that outnumbers their sphere 4:1 has come together to roll them (although given their concentration in the upper tier those numbers are a bit deceptive, since the numbers are much more even up top) and 2) opted to lay there quietly and get stomped rather than adopting a strategy that might allow them to more effectively fight (and have some fun in the process).  While it's nice you've returned from your absence to advocate a change in the game mechanics that would offset the many FA and Milcom blunders that have landed TKR in the situation it now finds itself in, the idea that the rules should be altered to ensure that TKR's curbstomp is more 'fun' for their members isn't exactly reasonable.  They'd do better to look at the existing mechanics and see how spheres like IQ and KT/TGH have adapted to unfavourable political and military situations and see if there's anything they can apply from those situations to their own dilemma, rather than deploying you to the OWF to propose alterations to the rules because they're finally on the receiving end of the kind of war they've been prosecuting against others for the past year and a bit.

Edited November 1, 2018 by Curufinwe

[KingOfBlueBears]

2 minutes ago, Shadowthrone said:

*scratches head* 

Don't think Inst was ever in NPO. 

He told me he was in tkr chat so that’s what I was going off of. If I’m wrong I can change it but just going off what I know.

[Lu Xun]

I never said I was NPO @KingOfBlueBears

[Shadowthrone]

1 minute ago, KingOfBlueBears said:

He told me he was in tkr chat so that’s what I was going off of. If I’m wrong I can change it but just going off what I know.

Think he has a moral position against the NPO at some level ? Also meh I'm fine with the war mechanics as is, and been on both sides of it, there's always some salt, but its whatever. 

[Lu Xun]

2 minutes ago, Shadowthrone said:

Think he has a moral position against the NPO at some level ? Also meh I'm fine with the war mechanics as is, and been on both sides of it, there's always some salt, but its whatever. 

Oh no, I told you, I got drunk, and made a commitment to reroll credits fighting on TKR side until they get peace. Remember, TKR is the alliance that called me "toxic" way back, and I actually agree with them.

My politics is more roll core Syndisphere, because Syndisphere is the last sector of the game that has never been comprehensively rolled. TEst has gotten burned, TGH has gotten burned, but the only political sector that has never been rolled is Syndicate and probably CoS.

Edited November 1, 2018 by Inst

[KingOfBlueBears]

11 minutes ago, Inst said:

I never said I was NPO @KingOfBlueBears

That’s bullshit and you know I have people who were there during the conversation saying you did.