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War Changes for Testing on Test Server


Alex
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So, 1/4 'daily' buys means 55% military buying capacity from zero in a single doublebuy (given PB, which is flatly indespensable in such a position).

...There are some problems with this. Notable among them is the fact that means it is not merely possible but in fact reasonable to take victories, even ITs, against maxed militaries, from zero, despite opposing enemy controls, given equal or even lesser city counts.

That means that, ironically enough, the defensive/peacetime meta will be to in fact run zero military whatsoever. If you get raided? Just nail the next doublebuy, and you're solid. There's not merely no first-strike advantage, but in fact striking at all will be such a horiffically losing proposition that nobody can be reasonably expected to do it, at least with any intention for conventional victory. The added score range only means that militarizing is even worse than before, since it permits the sensibly demilitarized larger nations to downdeclare on the fool with greater ease. Literally everything comes down to whoever has the most nations to throw into the grinder, preparedness and planning be damned.

Now sure there's discontent with "band-aid" fixes, but that's due to raw impatience, not due to the merits of putting together an entire poorly thought out overhaul at once without considering the realistic effects of the changes. Good medicine tastes bad, suck it down and take the changes slow. Please.

100 score cities +10 score base is significant enough.

Edited by Sir Scarfalot
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13 hours ago, Keegoz said:

It really doesn't. It's basically the one thing I agree with here that does need to be changed the most.

Yes, but making it even worse doesnt make it better. Military needs to make up a good percentage of the score total. On the test server right now I can declare on someone my size that is zeroed while i'm maxed on every single unit. That is not balanced.

It's good that he is addressing things that need change but it doesn't help if the change isn't a fix.

Edited by Dryad
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3 hours ago, Dryad said:

Yes, but making it even worse doesnt make it better. Military needs to make up a good percentage of the score total. On the test server right now I can declare on someone my size that is zeroed while i'm maxed on every single unit. That is not balanced.

It's good that he is addressing things that need change but it doesn't help if the change isn't a fix.

Thing is, though, declaring on someone when you're maxed out and they're zeroed isn't any guarantee of real victory given the main server environment. Test server perhaps, but like I pointed out in my previous post they can pull 55% of every single thing you've got come the next doublebuy. Best case scenario where you declare slightly before your mutual resets, which by the way isn't necessarily knowable ahead of time, then (under fortress policy) they have plenty of time to simply fortify in preparation for their potentially devastating doublebuy which you either A. won't have enough action points to counter or B. do, by virtue of not actually taking advantage of their demilitarized status.

If you're raiding, then you won't at all have or reasonably afford the ~2k infra necessary to run 100% ships, so if the target either has or gets up to 2k infra and militarizes then his doublebuy of ships could quite possibly exceed your raiding maximum, leaving you vulnerable to being shipped down. Sure you can airstrike the ships.... at the cost of merely keeping up with his air buys and allowing him to expand in tanks and soldiers. You could airstrike his tanks... allowing him to navy uncontested. You could ground battle... allowing him to, again, navy uncontested. You could airstrike his air... allowing him to tank up uncontested. And all that if and only if you're willing to spend however ridiculously much on steel for the tanks and/or navy you need to even try for victory. Sure you'll win by ground battles, but is that really a won raid? And once counters come into play, even if they start from zero, lol no.

I'm not saying that any of this is a good thing, far from it. I'm just responding to the concern that you specifically raised right there.

That whole mess would create a defensive meta defined by having zero military whatsoever for the genuine merits of doing so, screwing raiders over way worse than the mere loss of soldier effectiveness.

 

Edited by Sir Scarfalot
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42 minutes ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

Thing is, though, declaring on someone when you're maxed out and they're zeroed isn't any guarantee of real victory given the main server environment. Test server perhaps, but like I pointed out in my previous post they can pull 55% of every single thing you've got come the next doublebuy. Best case scenario where you declare slightly before your mutual resets, which by the way isn't necessarily knowable ahead of time, then (under fortress policy) they have plenty of time to simply fortify in preparation for their potentially devastating doublebuy which you either A. won't have enough action points to counter or B. do, by virtue of not actually taking advantage of their demilitarized status.

The potentially devastating double buy that gets them to 55% of my 100% military that also leaves them with no rebuy after getting 55% while i still have my own rebuy at 100%. I have to disagree: there is absolutely no way anyone zeroed beats anyone maxed at the same size without getting help.

42 minutes ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

If you're raiding, then you won't at all have or reasonably afford the ~2k infra necessary to run 100% ships, so if the target either has or gets up to 2k infra and militarizes then his doublebuy of ships could quite possibly exceed your raiding maximum, leaving you vulnerable to being shipped down. Sure you can airstrike the ships.... at the cost of merely keeping up with his air buys and allowing him to expand in tanks and soldiers. You could airstrike his tanks... allowing him to navy uncontested. You could ground battle... allowing him to, again, navy uncontested. You could airstrike his air... allowing him to tank up uncontested. And all that if and only if you're willing to spend however ridiculously much on steel for the tanks and navy you need to even try for victory. Sure you'll win by ground battles, but is that really a won raid? And once counters come into play, even if they start from zero, lol no.

Except in wars people don't mind getting beiged much (in fact many tend to attack others for the simple purpose of getting beiged) and aircraft is all that really matters... or at least ships certainly dont matter. If you have the upper hand in air you just do airstrikes targetting tanks if they have any and thus keep the upper hand in air and ground. You may not be able to kill quickly enough to hold the navy down as well but who cares?

42 minutes ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

I'm not saying that any of this is a good thing, far from it. I'm just responding to the concern that you specifically raised right there.

That whole mess would create a defensive meta defined by having zero military whatsoever for the genuine merits of doing so, screwing raiders over way worse than the mere loss of soldier effectiveness.

I think I'd speak for all raiders in saying that we would love a meta in which just nobody would have any military.

 

 

Here is the thing, Alex is focussing on one thing to fix. People are able to declare on others with only half or even less their own city-count which may be a bit unfair. Ok, fair. So far so good, I can relate to that. But then he goes on and just blends everything else out, fixing that one thing while not recognizing the side effects on other things.

It's not okay to declare on those who have way less cities, because they are weaker, but then it's completely okay to be able to declare on those who have no military at all making them clearly weaker? This seems a bit strange to me, but that's exactly what you get if you almost completely take out military as a score component.

In this game high score should mean "strong" and low score should mean "weak", that has to be the case if you want to keep all nations out of range to get bullied by those way stronger. But isn't military by far the most important thing to define the strength of the nation? How can you almost completely take it out of the score calculation then? Why don't you instead take score away from things that don't make a nation much stronger? Like you know, remove all score from infra past 2k which doesnt do anything at all in a war. Or like economic projects or something... idk, all that stuff you don't actually need in a fight. But reducing the score given by military, which is by far the most important thing? To me that is a wtf-logic that I fail to comprehend. 

Edited by Dryad

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7 minutes ago, Dryad said:

The potentially devastating double buy that gets them to 55% of my 100% military that also leaves them with no rebuy after getting 55% while i still have my own rebuy at 100%. I have to disagree: there is absolutely no way anyone zeroed beats anyone maxed at the same size without getting help.

Ah, fair enough. Still, as I said, I was referring to raids, by which I mean wars declared for the purpose of achieving as much profit as possible. The sheer number of options open to defenders from zero is considerable enough to allow them to do plenty of damage before being beiged. It forces the aggressor to take losses on at least one front, inefficiently perhaps but still sufficient to deny most realistic profit.

And once a single beige is achieved, it's gg; they can max out from there alone for round 2, at which point it comes down to almost nothing but luck.

Meanwhile, counters can move in from zero and easily bring the raider down without difficulty, leaving militarization a losing proposition while crippling raiders that roll anything other than tank flashes for a quick two ground battles.

29 minutes ago, Dryad said:

Except in wars people don't mind getting beiged much (in fact many tend to attack others for the simple purpose of getting beiged) and aircraft is all that really matters... or at least ships certainly dont matter. If you have the upper hand in air you just do airstrikes targetting tanks if they have any and thus keep the upper hand in air and ground. You may not be able to kill quickly enough to hold the navy down as well but who cares?

I think I'd speak for all raiders in saying that we would love a meta in which just nobody would have any military.

You're still thinking in terms of the old value of aircraft, which was predicated on their scarcity. They're by far the most changed unit in that they are A. no longer invulnerable and B. much, much faster to recover. The main reason that wars were considered won and lost by air was because once air supremacy was achieved, that front was done and dusted, leaving the victor able to pressure the other fronts down using that safe resource with impunity. Now that that is no longer true, aircraft depreciate in value considerably. They're not safe from retaliation and while the air/ground synergy helps keep the war under control to a degree, that still leaves it very risky to actually use that advantage against navy, which would be shedding resistance faster than the aircraft shed resistance. Ground still sheds resistance efficiently, but if the raider focuses on countering the navy then they lose the ground and if they focus on countering the ground they lose the navy.

As for the meta, unless your raiding alliance outnumbers your pixelhugging targets' entire bloc then you're going to get dunked on by counters that started from zero.

35 minutes ago, Dryad said:

Here is the thing, Alex is focussing on one thing to fix. People are able to declare on others with only half or even less their own city-count which may be a bit unfair. Ok, fair. So far so good, I can relate to that. But then he goes on and just blends everything else out, fixing that one thing while not recognizing the side effects on other things.

It's not okay to declare on those who have way less cities, because they are weaker, but then it's completely okay to be able to declare on those who have no military at all making them clearly weaker? This seems a bit strange to me, but that's exactly what you get if you almost completely take out military as a score component.

In this game high score should mean "strong" and low score should mean "weak", that has to be the case if you want to keep all nations out of range to get bullied by those way stronger. But isn't military by far the most important thing to define the strength of the nation? How can you almost completely take it out of the score calculation then? Why don't you instead take score away from things that don't make a nation much stronger? Like you know, remove all score from infra past 2k which doesnt do anything at all in a war. Or like economic projects or something... idk, all that stuff you don't actually need in a fight. But reducing the score given by military, which is by far the most important thing? To me that is a wtf-logic that I fail to comprehend. 

I 100% agree, due in no small part to the arguments that I just made above. It's why I agree with you entirely, we're just coming at that conclusion from different trains of thought.

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@Dryad Simple answer:No, it's cities. Military is temporary, military dies. Cities are eternal, and reflect your actual combat capacity in a war, rather than your military level which will fluctuate heavily.

Cities determine your fighting power more than military. I could sell down everything to slap some c11s, and my double buy would likely allow me to fight 5 at once and win. If the micro they're in is dumb, they may counter with more c11s who similarly die.

Alex is attempting explicitly to stop that from being possible. Because my city count is my actual fighting capacity, not my military at the time of declaring.

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@Akuryo the moment your military dies it won't count to your score. The score imo should be a reflection of your current strength.

I'm not sure how anyone can say your city count is your fighting strength when clearly the fighting strength of a zeroed and a maxed nation is not equal despite having the same city count. And by not equal I mean not even anywhere near close to equal. There is at least one advantage the c11 has. Unlike those your size the c11 can only get declared on after you sell your stuff, not sure if it's just me that finds this not to be meaningless.

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4 hours ago, Dryad said:

@Akuryo the moment your military dies it won't count to your score. The score imo should be a reflection of your current strength.

I'm not sure how anyone can say your city count is your fighting strength when clearly the fighting strength of a zeroed and a maxed nation is not equal despite having the same city count. And by not equal I mean not even anywhere near close to equal. There is at least one advantage the c11 has. Unlike those your size the c11 can only get declared on after you sell your stuff, not sure if it's just me that finds this not to be meaningless.

Considering Aky's doublebuy in the new system would consist of more than the c11's maximum military... 'advantage' isn't really the word I'd use.

 

4 hours ago, Akuryo said:

@Dryad Simple answer:No, it's cities. Military is temporary, military dies. Cities are eternal, and reflect your actual combat capacity in a war, rather than your military level which will fluctuate heavily.

Cities determine your fighting power more than military. I could sell down everything to slap some c11s, and my double buy would likely allow me to fight 5 at once and win. If the micro they're in is dumb, they may counter with more c11s who similarly die.

Alex is attempting explicitly to stop that from being possible. Because my city count is my actual fighting capacity, not my military at the time of declaring.

This is true, but it's more that it's extra true under a 55% doublebuy scenario and flatly ridiculous. Militarization stops being relevant whatsoever, which means the adjustment is going way, way too far beyond overcorrected. That's my argument.

Edited by Sir Scarfalot
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1 hour ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

Considering Aky's doublebuy in the new system would consist of more than the c11's maximum military... 'advantage' isn't really the word I'd use. 

I agree that in the new system a c25 would beat a c11 out of a double buy in a 1v1, although I don't think c11s would be in the range of a c25 in the new system, even if the c25 is zeroed. Even in 1/6 I don't doubt that a c25 could beat a decent c11 player, it's quite a city gap after all and I certainly don't mean to say city count is no factor in a fight, the rebuy is a real strength.

What I mean by advantage are other things though. Ultimately this game isn't a 1v1. In order to assess if a nation is in a good position you compare them to those who could declare on them. A c25 has a lot more score than a c11 with equal military and will be toyed around with in their own environment against other c20+ nations. If you get downdeclared on by a c20+ as a c11 then that c20+ is some broken nation that got zeroed in its tier and is likely not having a good time. On the other hand the c11 is in the range it belongs to, mostly fighting those of their tier, perhaps struggling against some c15s that can declare on them maxed and doing well. But the higher the city gap you get downdeclared from the higher the chance whoever declared on you is having a hard time in their tier and down in your range for that reason. Like, even if the c20+ wasn't zeroed and simply decommed, they would be high enough in score to get countered by those that can easily beat them, while the c11 will now be way lower in score after the double buy.

Note that I don't mean some case of infra inflation where the c11 bloats themself into range of a c20 that is maxed. I'm arguing the situation in which both have similar infra. Infra is obviously something that is highly unbalanced. Same with nukes etc.

Edited by Dryad

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13 hours ago, Dryad said:

Yes, but making it even worse doesnt make it better. Military needs to make up a good percentage of the score total. On the test server right now I can declare on someone my size that is zeroed while i'm maxed on every single unit. That is not balanced.

It's good that he is addressing things that need change but it doesn't help if the change isn't a fix.

Potentially yes, but as I was responding to someone who thinks the scores at current are fine...

As for the specific score amounts, well the test server is there to well test them.

[11:52 PM] Prefontaine: But Keegoz is actually bad. [11:52 PM] Prefontaine: He's my favorite bad leader though.

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The military scores need to be reduced, but not as much as Alex is proposing. There's a fine line between military being worth too much and military being counted as less than it actually is.

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