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The current meta and you.


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The Current Meta and You.  

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  1. 1. Does the current Meta need to be changed



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27 minutes ago, Auctor said:

Making infra cost less to rebuild would blunt the damage effect of a blitz but not shorten wars. Infra damage is is a side effect of warring in the current meta based around air superiority and tier control, not a driving motivator.

I think there might be more which don’t last as long if a shorter peace period can recoup the cost of rebuilding.

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The problem isn't that rebuilding is too expensive, the problem is that wars aren't damaging enough. Making rebuilding cheaper just means that you can make your war chests larger and fight even longer.

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1 minute ago, Auctor said:

The problem isn't that rebuilding is too expensive, the problem is that wars aren't damaging enough. Making rebuilding cheaper just means that you can make your war chests larger and fight even longer.

That’s mostly an issue of people hiding their banks, so their just taking the very minimal infra damage throughout unless found.

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Which is not a state of affairs that would be altered by having cheaper infra. If anything, less available damage that can be done would make this even worse.

Edited by Auctor
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2 minutes ago, Auctor said:

Which is not a state of affairs that would be altered by having cheaper infra. If anything, less available damage that can be done would make this even worse.

I’m saying for the damaging type of war you’re talking about, all infra should be assumed destroyed from the start in preparation of a long grind. If you want to do quicken those, the rebuild cost of infra doesn’t matter.

Although not all wars would turn into something like that if it was cheaper to rebuild. Also alliances might war more often.

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Pretty simple solution to making wars shorter and more decisive is to simply increase the costs of war in a dramatic fashion. This can achieved in either of two ways. 1) slash production rates in nations, or 2) dramatically increase by a large magnitude the cash cost and resource cost for tanks, planes and ships. Increasing the food usage by infantry too would assist in this.

Granted the economic impact would be immense, we would see either of two or perhaps both outcomes. The first being long periods of peace between wars or short decisive wars where planning and strategy are essential, particularly in regards to resource management.

I doubt that we would likely see long periods of peace since it would be a strategic fallacy for a smaller but more organised alliance to allow a larger but less organised alliance the time required to build up suitable reserves. I don't think decreasing production rates of resources  to be the best solution since that would likely slow down small nation growth due to less funds accrued from trading, however, less production with an increased demand due to higher resource requirements during wartime could see a dramatic increase in a resource's trade value. It would really just need the correct balancing act to make it work.

In short, if you want shorter and more decisive wars, the resource costs of war need to be dramatically increased so that the value of war isn't based mostly on infra damage.

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5 hours ago, Inst said:

If you want short, decisive wars that are quickly decided, the obvious solution would simply be to accelerate the pace of battle. Make it so that you can get 48 MAP per war in 24 hours and beiges expire quickly. That means that players need to be highly active, but only for a very short span of time.

 

I personally like something along the lines of this idea, but to add to it...

Change from 12 MAP/24hrs to 24 MAP/24hrs.

It makes war quicker, and that's something a lot of us want. The issue I see with Inst's 48 MAP/24hrs is that I don't reckon the defending AA would have enough of a chance to respond with counters quick enough, so I feel 24MAP/24hrs might work a little better. 

All wars end in 2 days of beige for defenders, regardless of the result.

It hurts to suggest this point given I'm in coalition B, but I think it's for the good of the game that we fix a very flawed mechanic. Having wars always end in beige for defenders allows for two benefits...

1) The losing side is given an opportunity to fight back (if individual nations can fight well, use good milcom, etc.) so we have much more dynamic wars & these long beatdowns don't continue. This way, we reward the skill of alliances and the fighting ability of their members.

2) Lets people actually have fun wars, rather than just getting held down for months on end (Which is a big reason as to why in wars we tend to lose activity.)

 

Anyway, I'm probably wrong about a lot of things here - more than happy to discuss.

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21 minutes ago, Charles the Tyrant said:

Pretty simple solution to making wars shorter and more decisive is to simply increase the costs of war in a dramatic fashion. This can achieved in either of two ways. 1) slash production rates in nations, or 2) dramatically increase by a large magnitude the cash cost and resource cost for tanks, planes and ships. Increasing the food usage by infantry too would assist in this.

Granted the economic impact would be immense, we would see either of two or perhaps both outcomes. The first being long periods of peace between wars or short decisive wars where planning and strategy are essential, particularly in regards to resource management.

I doubt that we would likely see long periods of peace since it would be a strategic fallacy for a smaller but more organised alliance to allow a larger but less organised alliance the time required to build up suitable reserves. I don't think decreasing production rates of resources  to be the best solution since that would likely slow down small nation growth due to less funds accrued from trading, however, less production with an increased demand due to higher resource requirements during wartime could see a dramatic increase in a resource's trade value. It would really just need the correct balancing act to make it work.

In short, if you want shorter and more decisive wars, the resource costs of war need to be dramatically increased so that the value of war isn't based mostly on infra damage.

I agree the cost of some military would be a way to increase costs to continue them longer & unable to fight sooner; I think the ability to sell resources for more would be good to help balance that out in not negatively impacting people from continuing to fight from a losing position longer anyways.

Although problem with doing so nations can be more decisively beaten is their enemies would also have less incentive to want to give them peace if considered a long term threat. Those winning might keep their enemies pinned forever or they die off.

Edited by Noctis Anarch Caelum
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Guest Frawley

The issue isn't the meta, its the war mechanics and tiering disparity.

Its pretty obvious that the game favours aggressive wars and higher city nations (I'm not saying it should not either).  But because military building is scaled to city count, shorter wars can only really ever have one outcome, that is the higher tiered side should always win as they can resupply the quickest.  This is obvious once you realise that while the cost of new cities is exponential, the military capacity increase is linear. (aka its the same problem as Tech in CN)

The reason holding MAPS for rebuys exists as a tactic is that usually for a group of smaller nations to take down a single nation more than 7+ cities above them, they all have to focus on one attack type (ground, air, or sea), and will almost certainly be shredded in the other two.  This costs a lot, and is a pain in the ass to implement as a strategy (given you need to have people suicide into superior numbers), but mechanically speaking, its the only way a c28 nation gets being taken down by three c20's. 

Planes just happen to be the best unit for a multitude of reasons (Damage scales better, can hit all units, cheaper etc).  Once you have removed those planes you can start to think about other units they have or infra, but usually, they will be flinging air at you, you have probably been countered, and they almost certainly have ground control over you, which means that a 504 plane c28 plane rebuy is actually worth 672 to a c20 .  The only strategy at this point to hold down the larger nation is to just keep the air low so that the next round is realistic.

I agree though its annoying, and I have complained about war mechanics in every war except this one.

Mechanical solution is pretty simple though, either:

  • Don't beige close wars (within say where the beiger is also under 40 resistance);
    • This shortens wars where both sides are fighting because it removes the disincentive to beige
  • Convert resistance to a single 'tug-of-war' number that represents a balance of power in the war; 
    • This allows wars where both sides are fighting to go the full term because they are winning in different area's
  • Shorten wars to 3 days; or 
    • This just shortens wars, without addressing any underlying mechanics, that said it would shorten overall conflicts by 2/5ths of the time.
  • Scale the increase in military capacity per city as one where the marginal benefit drops for each new city
    • This is a whole lot harder to balance but would be the 'best' outcome likely
Edited by Frawley
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Thinking scaling how many military units the projects give would be only to scale it back per City. Although could also maybe boost how many of each military improvement each can build per city; so people need to build higher infra to max them out.

Would do so maxing one type of military unit might not be more effective than a diverse one & still let nations build the same amount of units per city using enough slots. As projects get destroyed, would be expensive to buy infra higher to fully max it if it takes more slots to max out. Although the 10th barrack in a city might add a lot less than earlier ones.

Although don’t really like idea of diminishing effectiveness of stuff since nations aligned in different tiers are at odds. Something like a diminishing effect on the military boost from cities would only be needed if the diminishing effect on NS suggestion was implemented.

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8 minutes ago, Sweeeeet Ronny D said:

we did a speed round before, it was during the testing phases before the "real" game rolled out.  The problem with bumping up maps like that, is you go to sleep, and wake up completely rolled.

So much this. SRD really hit the nail on the head here.

Even in the short term, that level of speed requires alliances having players that can not only be hyper active, but be consistently hyper active. And that's just not what the vast, vast majority of people can give to this game. Eventually, you end up with short term curbstomps that you can't feasibly win/enjoy. Which is... not fun. 

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I'll also bring out the political difference here. Much of KERCHTOG has highly active players, but as war continues, their activity advantage peters out as a truly high level of activity can't be sustained indefinitely. Core ex-IQ, on the other hand, tends to have medium-activity players who tend to benefit as the war drags on because they have stamina for a prolonged fight and the activity difference comes even to their advantage as the war goes to 3 months. So while there are intrinsically issues with both war archetypes (is the DoW equivalent to a victory announcement? Are future war cycles going to be 3 months of exhausting war and 3 months of peace?), fixing it to one side or another becomes a political decision.

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5 hours ago, Frawley said:
  • Don't beige close wars (within say where the beiger is also under 40 resistance);
    • This shortens wars where both sides are fighting because it removes the disincentive to beige
  • Convert resistance to a single 'tug-of-war' number that represents a balance of power in the war; 
    • This allows wars where both sides are fighting to go the full term because they are winning in different area's
  • Shorten wars to 3 days; or 
    • This just shortens wars, without addressing any underlying mechanics, that said it would shorten overall conflicts by 2/5ths of the time.
  • Scale the increase in military capacity per city as one where the marginal benefit drops for each new city
    • This is a whole lot harder to balance but would be the 'best' outcome likely
  • This avoids the beiging problem rather than addressing it. It would be better to retool beige than try something like this.
  • The tug of war is so obvious I can't believe it wasn't implemented from the start. Maybe decrease the length of the "rope" over time to make it easier to close a war as it ends.
  • War length is another really obvious one. Currently, someone can hold you down for a whole business week.
  • Capacity isn't really an issue compared to the obscenely high damage potential towards units as opposed to everyone else. An overall reduction in damage is more appropriate in this situation.

Addressing the op, the fundamental problem is that the game mechanics are completely at odds with the goals of a large scale conflict. We can't expect players to change to a different meta that isn't supported by the mechanics. Yes, the current political scene makes long wars more likely, but when a single player can comfortably squat on two to three others for five days a cycle, long wars are all but hard coded. Without a change in the core mechanics of what war is, we can't reasonably expect the players to change their tactics away from what the mechanics lead too.

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Here's a simple band-aid idea since I know Alex likes those.

Simply increase the base chances for all improvements to be destroyed, and on top of that doubly increase the chance that military improvements are destroyed. People will be forced to either ditch commerce improvements for military ones more often during war, or be forced to rebuy infra, both of which are expensive and impact the nation/alliance's ability to sustain itself economically. Of course, that doesn't address many of the core issues raised here, but it would probably help a little.

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i agree in the sense that the MAPs every two hours dont need to change, especially since most people in this game log on once a day or smth

however, the real problem will be convincing Alex he needs to change the game since he obviously has no desire to update anything that isnt regarding how much money he can get out of us

also lmao, remember that one time he said he would make the game better looking and it turned out to be some fricked april fools joke? we're all fricked

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4 minutes ago, Dad said:

Here's a simple band-aid idea since I know Alex likes those.

Simply increase the base chances for all improvements to be destroyed, and on top of that doubly increase the chance that military improvements are destroyed. People will be forced to either ditch commerce improvements for military ones more often during war, or be forced to rebuy infra, both of which are expensive and impact the nation/alliance's ability to sustain itself economically. Of course, that doesn't address many of the core issues raised here, but it would probably help a little.

 

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5 hours ago, Frawley said:
  • Don't beige close wars (within say where the beiger is also under 40 resistance);
    • This shortens wars where both sides are fighting because it removes the disincentive to beige
  • Convert resistance to a single 'tug-of-war' number that represents a balance of power in the war; 
    • This allows wars where both sides are fighting to go the full term because they are winning in different area's
  • Shorten wars to 3 days; or 
    • This just shortens wars, without addressing any underlying mechanics, that said it would shorten overall conflicts by 2/5ths of the time.
  • Scale the increase in military capacity per city as one where the marginal benefit drops for each new city
    • This is a whole lot harder to balance but would be the 'best' outcome likely

1. That disincentivizes fighting back... as well as fighting in the first place, since beige remains something that's controllable and therefore exploitable. That's an absolutely atrocious idea.

2. That would make it so that upset victories are quite literally impossible. No thank you.

3. Removes the possibility of missile/nuke beiges. frick you.

4. More "frick the whales, boost NPO" crap? You're conveniently forgetting the score range situation which already *very much* renders the marginal benefit lower for each new city. Lest we forget, NPO now has 2/3s of the cities of the average Grumpy member, as opposed to 1/2, and that gap should only close due to the aforementioned exponential increase in city cost.

In summary, no, the mechanics would be just fine with no change other than war expiration resulting in beige; the problem is 100% one of mindset and behavior, and also disingenuous suggestions designed by said mindset.

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13 minutes ago, Dad said:

Here's a simple band-aid idea since I know Alex likes those.

Simply increase the base chances for all improvements to be destroyed, and on top of that doubly increase the chance that military improvements are destroyed. People will be forced to either ditch commerce improvements for military ones more often during war, or be forced to rebuy infra, both of which are expensive and impact the nation/alliance's ability to sustain itself economically. Of course, that doesn't address many of the core issues raised here, but it would probably help a little.

I dislike this idea most. Already improvements can be destroyed pretty easy, nuke destroys 2 each time. Also piracy already has an increase.

Could make nukes have a chance of destroying more than 2 if wanting to make them easier to destroy. 

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11 minutes ago, Noctis Anarch Caelum said:

I dislike this idea most. Already improvements can be destroyed pretty easy, nuke destroys 2 each time. Also piracy already has an increase.

Could make nukes have a chance of destroying more than 2 if wanting to make them easier to destroy. 

No. Nukes are an ineffective tool for improvement destruction due to maps.

Improvements being near invincible had been a problem for years, and it's been suggested they should be destroyed more but never really picked up by Alex.

I had a 14 city nation in my alliance. 2k infra, 560 improvements total. Got bombed down to 200ish infra. Guess how many improvements he lost? Like 12. He lost 90% of his infra, and only 2% of improvements. 

Yes it would probably make wars shorter by making prolonged conflict more and more expensive as opposed to the dirt cheap it comes down to now. It's also a band aid fix like we expect from Alex.

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4 minutes ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

;the problem is 100% one of mindset and behavior, and also disingenuous suggestions designed by said mindset.

Sir Scarf is absolutely right. Wars are caused by the mindset of the players. Like Surf's Up, for example. I couldn't see the point of that war in the first place. It didn't seem to have any. It was pointless at best, and counter-productive at worst. Start a war over boredom?! 'Sigh'.....not a good idea.

This current war, for example, started over leaked info. The info leak involved discussion of an impending attack on both Blocs involved as combatants in Surf's Up. This resulted in both ChAoS and KETOG Blocs joining forces to strike the plotters first, rather than wait to weaken themselves through further conflict. Offensive Defense. A good idea. It's also a very rational and predictable response.

Yup. The root cause the wars in the above examples were both how players were thinking, which resulted in plans made, and actions followed. No way to deny it. That's just the way it is. Player thinking and strategizing IS the Metagame!!

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The only way to make wars more balanced is to increase the score value of cities, this'll restrict the tiers a bit more. And if it's accompanied by a shift in the political meta game to only signing/fighting people in your range we'll be gucci

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Guest Frawley
2 hours ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

In summary, no, the mechanics would be just fine with no change other than war expiration resulting in beige; the problem is 100% one of mindset and behavior, and also disingenuous suggestions designed by said mindset.

If you expand my 3c20 vs 1c28 example, mandatory beige means that all conflicts will take longer, as the larger nation will do the exact same thing we do with beige denial in reverse, and make sure they get a full 6 day unit rebuild between each round. This means if a coalition wants to damage that c28, they will have to fight much much longer as they have to drag the larger opponent down again and again and again, this will make wars even more boring, and longer.

Your suggestion is substantially more self serving than you claim mine to be.

2 hours ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

1. That disincentivizes fighting back... as well as fighting in the first place, since beige remains something that's controllable and therefore exploitable. That's an absolutely atrocious idea.

2. That would make it so that upset victories are quite literally impossible. No thank you.

3. Removes the possibility of missile/nuke beiges. frick you.

4. More "frick the whales, boost NPO" crap? You're conveniently forgetting the score range situation which already *very much* renders the marginal benefit lower for each new city. Lest we forget, NPO now has 2/3s of the cities of the average Grumpy member, as opposed to 1/2, and that gap should only close due to the aforementioned exponential increase in city cost.

1. Most wars are held to expiration anyway because of the way the mechanics work, this does nothing but speed up wars.

2. Upset victories occur because of coordination, or because the person winning the war is refusing to beige, this change addresses the second, not the first.

3. Should beiging by missile be possible? how is it technically that a nation is looted by a cruise missile or nuclear bomb, or even planes. Honestly looting should really only exist in a gameplay sense where a GC or Blockade is in place. As you need to either capture trade flows or have boots on the ground.

4. Its not frick the whales, you well know that the linear growth of tech vs the exponential growth of everything else was gamebreaking in CN. It's no different here.  For the record, I strongly believe that it should be hard to fight upper tier nations, and it is presently, but that we should consider what the game will look like in 2-3 years not right now.

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22 minutes ago, Frawley said:

If you expand my 3c20 vs 1c28 example, mandatory beige means that all conflicts will take longer, as the larger nation will do the exact same thing we do with beige denial in reverse, and make sure they get a full 6 day unit rebuild between each round. This means if a coalition wants to damage that c28, they will have to fight much much longer as they have to drag the larger opponent down again and again and again, this will make wars even more boring, and longer.

Your suggestion is substantially more self serving than you claim mine to be.

1. Most wars are held to expiration anyway because of the way the mechanics work, this does nothing but speed up wars.

2. Upset victories occur because of coordination, or because the person winning the war is refusing to beige, this change addresses the second, not the first.

3. Should beiging by missile be possible? how is it technically that a nation is looted by a cruise missile or nuclear bomb, or even planes. Honestly looting should really only exist in a gameplay sense where a GC or Blockade is in place. As you need to either capture trade flows or have boots on the ground.

4. Its not frick the whales, you well know that the linear growth of tech vs the exponential growth of everything else was gamebreaking in CN. It's no different here.  For the record, I strongly believe that it should be hard to fight upper tier nations, and it is presently, but that we should consider what the game will look like in 2-3 years not right now.

Dishonest and fallacious as usual.

The larger nation will have the option to either fight back and thus open defense slots due to beiging enemies, or *not* fight back and thus take beige damage plus suicide/missile/nuke attacks. Claiming that either is a total lack of damage to the c28 is complete self-serving horseshit; there should absolutely be no way for the c20s to permanently militarily hold down the c28 any more than the c28 should be able to permanently militarily hold down the c20. According to your suggestion, all you want is for your pet c20s to have the option to run that c28 out of the game by enabling your them to permanently hold down their opponent, which is absolutely something that should never be possible. No "damage" by such a fricked up definition should ever be possible; not even against the c20s. This is not a game where we should allow or encourage permanent defeats.

Wars are held to expiration because there's the option to avoid beiging. Which, I should point out, is against the rules by a strict interpretation; it is after all nations with the option to win choosing not to, due to not planning to win from the start. With all wars resulting in beige, wars won't be held to expiration, and thus will end sooner than that, which obviously speeds up wars. So that's another pile of self-serving horseshit.

Upset victories occur due to activity and recognizing opportunities, opportunities that cannot exist if progress towards that goal can be airstriked away. That's self-serving horseshit if there ever was any.

Of course beiging by missile should be goddamn possible; it permits anyone in any position to apply pressure to anyone else that's opposing them. But since you'd rather have NPO be able to hold down their opponents without them having any options, you're just unwilling to accept that gameplay should be possible for the underdog side as much as it should be possible for the dominant side. As long as NPO is on said dominant side, of course. Self-serving horseshit again!

Linear growth of military, exponential cost of city. That's not an exponential growth of city, that's exponential COST, and lest we forget the gap between c20 and c28 is far less today than it was between c12 and c26, and only can close. You're straight up inventing a horseshit problem for self-serving reasons.

Edited by Sir Scarfalot
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16 minutes ago, Frawley said:

If you expand my 3c20 vs 1c28 example, mandatory beige means that all conflicts will take longer, as the larger nation will do the exact same thing we do with beige denial in reverse, and make sure they get a full 6 day unit rebuild between each round. This means if a coalition wants to damage that c28, they will have to fight much much longer as they have to drag the larger opponent down again and again and again, this will make wars even more boring, and longer.

Your suggestion is substantially more self serving than you claim mine to be.

1. Most wars are held to expiration anyway because of the way the mechanics work, this does nothing but speed up wars.

2. Upset victories occur because of coordination, or because the person winning the war is refusing to beige, this change addresses the second, not the first.

3. Should beiging by missile be possible? how is it technically that a nation is looted by a cruise missile or nuclear bomb, or even planes. Honestly looting should really only exist in a gameplay sense where a GC or Blockade is in place. As you need to either capture trade flows or have boots on the ground.

4. Its not frick the whales, you well know that the linear growth of tech vs the exponential growth of everything else was gamebreaking in CN. It's no different here.  For the record, I strongly believe that it should be hard to fight upper tier nations, and it is presently, but that we should consider what the game will look like in 2-3 years not right now.

Even if beige holding does speed up wars (and i dont think it does) long wars would be less of an issue it didnt involve large amounts of people on both sides being rendered practically nonexistent for months, as seems to be the new trend some people are into. 

In 2-3 years i suspect NPO will average something like 25 cities or more. Which based on the way the game is currently sounds awful. Mid tier suddenly being c25, or higher, sounds frankly insane. And boy would it suck for new alliances who'd have to tier to city 18 to even begin being relevant to anything. 

 

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