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State of the game, including updates


Prefontaine
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Hi everyone. I'm here to address current situation regarding the changes to the game. I know many people are pissed off by recent events; the score changes, casualty changes, the removal of beige, and other changes which have recently come. I've been told these changes will not get rolled back. You may not like that, but these changes haven't shown what impact they'll have on alliance based warfare. I know that there are many speculations, and some of you may be right, but until its put through the works we won't know exactly how the new meta stacks up to the old; see where and what needs to be changed. 

That being said, I've been tasked with finding a way to allow nations to rebuild during a conflict and avoid be perma-blockaded due to the removal of beige. Some players have posted and/or messaged me privately about re-works to beige and the war system as a whole. Some of the ideas I do like, and would not mind seeing implemented after some kinks are worked out. However, we are looking to go at things without a beige, or a invulnerability time-line mechanic currently. This may change after the next global, but for now we're operating under those guidelines in replacing what beige did.

Beige did not do its job. It did not provide a nation a proper chance to rebuild when facing down opponents the majority of the time. It failed at providing a real reprieve from war. Below is a list of the proposed changes to warfare and espionage to help fill the void of what beige was, and was supposed to do:

 

Quote

Unit Changes

Unit Costs

Often in war, once you were beat down you stayed down. With this new system players will be able to rebuild and fight for longer if they have the resources. Tanks have a very high cost due to their high steel component. Some units have high operational costs in Gas/Ammo.

Tank Costs

  • Tanks now cost 0.5 Steel per tank.

Ammo and Gas usage

  • Tanks now cost 1 gas and 1 ammo per 125 units (was per 100)

  • Planes now cost 1 gas and 1 ammo per 7 units (was per 4)

  • Ships now cost 1 gas and 2 ammo per ship (was 2 and 3)

 

Active duty and Reserve status units:

  1. Active Duty units function as current units function

  2. Each day you can buy your normal daily buy of military units. When they’re bought they default to Reserve status.

  3. Your Active Duty unit totals plus your reserve status unit totals cannot exceed your max military for that unit type. (If you have a max of 1500 planes you can have, you cannot have more that 1500 total planes between active duty and reserve status)

  4. Units in reserve cannot be killed from military attacks on your nation unless the improvement which houses them is killed. The amount killed is equal to the % of max of that unit type. (ex: if you were at 20% of planes and you lost an airfield, you would lose 3 planes)

  5. At any time you can move any number of reserve military into active duty

  6. You cannot move from active duty to reserve. Once active it can only be lost or decommissioned.

  7. Planes, Ships, and Tanks all cost 25% of their normal upkeep cost while in reserve.

  8. Soldiers cost 50% of their normal upkeep while in reserve.

  9. Spy attacks against reserve units is reduced by 50%

  10. Once a unit has been in reserve status for 10 days it is moved to active duty automatically.

 

 

Spy Changes:

Active and Undeployed Spies

  1. When spies are purchased, they default to undeployed status. These spies do not add to your defense against espionage attacks against your nation and only require 25% of the upkeep costs.

  2. You can move spies over to Active Duty at any time, and with any amount that are currently undeployed. You cannot move spies from active duty to reserves.

  3. You can have 5 spies in undeployed status even if you’re at max spies in active status.

  4. If you have the CIA project you can have 10 spies in the undeployed status even if you’re at max spies in active status.

  5. If you have the Spy Satellite project you can have 15 spies in the undeployed status even if you’re at max spies.

  6. You cannot deploy more spies than your nation max, the additional undeployed spies are meant to replenish ranks quickly in opening attacks.

  7. Intel attacks will show the number of active duty spies and an approximation of undeployed spies.

 

New Spy “Attack” - Blockade Breaking

 

  1. Nations can send spies into another nation which is blockaded and supply that nation with up to $1,000,000 per city and up to 1,000 resources per city. These resources may be more than one resource type, but are limited to a maximum totaling 1,000 per city.

  2. This spy attack only uses an offensive spy action of the "attacking" nation. It does not impact daily spy use in either the blockaded, or blockading nation.

  3. The difficulty of the mission is determined by the number of blockades against the nation as well as the attacking nation having adequate spies (45+). Odds will become worse below 45 spies. The more you have above may provide a bonus to the odds.

    1. If the nation is blockaded by 1 nation, the odds of success are 90%

    2. If the nation is blockaded by 2 nations, the odds of success are 80%

    3. If the nation is blockaded by 3 nations, the odds of success are 70%

    4. If the nation is blockaded by 4+ nations, the odds of success are 55%

  4. If the mission fails, 

    1. there is a high chance the nation sending the attack is revealed. 

    2. There is a chance that spies are killed in the nation sending the attack

    3. Each nation blockaded receives 5% of the resources/money which were lost.

  5. If the mission succeeds, there is 10% chance all blockades are broken against this nation.

  6. If no resources are sent, then the attack is to attempt to lift the blockades against the target nation.

    1. If there is only 1 nation blockading the odds are 20%

    2. If there are 2 nations blockading the odds are 15%

    3. If there are 3+ nations blockading the odds are 10%

 

Changes to Blockades

  1. Once a war expires where a nation was blockaded at the expiration, that nation will not be able to be blockaded again for 5 days, or 60 turns.
  2. Attacks that would have initiated a blockaded during these 60 turns instead of blockading, destroy an improvement. The improvement destroyed is restricted to Manufacturing, Civil, and Commerce. If there are no improvements left in either of these sections, then Raw Resources are targeted next. If there are no Raw Resources left, Military is targeted last. Power Plants cannot be destroyed in this way. 
  3. This timer does not stack, however it does reset if another war expires that had a blockade during this time.

 

Quote

Alex_PW Yesterday at 11:40 PM
I want to go forward with the reserve system & the new spy option

These are the options Alex wants to use to help replace the beige mechanic. Again, I want to stress that the ideas which required whole game overhauls, and re-implementation of a beige, or beige-like mechanic are not methods Alex wants to use to replace the concept of the beige mechanic. This doesn't mean that if this method does not do what it's supposed to, a method which leans towards ideas already suggested won't come into play.


That being said, I'd like input on these numbers. 

Edited by Prefontaine
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How does safety level factor into those odds? What if the some blockading nations have certain war policies affecting spying odds? The spy operation does not use up defensive spy slots in the attacked nations either, opening it up to abuse. Additionally, the amount of spies that the defender has compared to the attacker will no longer be a factor in determining the odds, when it should. Instead, the spy attack should be done on an opponent, lifting the blockades done by that nation.  I would advocate again a simpler attack where odds are determined by the usual formula for amount of attacking vs defending spies and safety level, then divided by a certain number for the new type of spy attack. This would incorporate all of the current components involved in spying, including the defensive spying limit. Perhaps increase the number dividing the odds by a certain amount for the number of blockades that the defending nation has. This would use the current system of spying to create a new spy attack, instead of a new, more complicated system just for this type of attack. 

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why do reserve troops have to move to active automatically?
you can  break a blockade by spy attacks alone? and how many ships are blockading has no effect on it?
do reserve units count towards score?

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5 minutes ago, im317 said:

why do reserve troops have to move to active automatically?
you can  break a blockade by spy attacks alone? and how many ships are blockading has no effect on it?
do reserve units count towards score?

1. Otherwise everyone would sit in reserve mode, then come all out after they were attacked. Attackers lose the opening salvo advantage without them being forced to eventually come out to active status.

2. Yes. Ships blockading have no effect, just number of players participating in blockades on the nation blockaded.

3. Reserve units will count for score. No reduction in score from being reserve versus active currently.Don't want to allow someone to have all reserve mil, lower score, declare, move all out to active and hit someone they shouldn't have with max mil.

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Not bad suggestions but I'm not a fan of nerfing blockades. With the reserve units intended to prevent military from being perma zeroed, there has to be some way to pin down the opponents or else wars will never end. Having a combination of counters and reserve units should make breaking blockades very doable while still offering a theoretical way to win the global through making your opponents go bankrupt if blockades don't get broken. That sounds like the best balance.

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1) I really don't like the way the new system could nerf blitzes.  If both sides are building up their units in reserve, whoever strikes first will probably be at a disadvantage.  And if one side is building up first and the other side is waiting a couple of days, they can strike while their units are still in reserve after their opponents are knocked out.

The incentive to strike first right now is really significant for the politics of the game.  It leads to more wars compared to say CN, where there were (when I used to play) a lot more false starts when it came to potential wars.  There's a big political cost to being the "aggressor" that the first strike advantage is a good balance for.

I'm not sure how to fix it, just stating that this is a major issue that needs to be thought through thoroughly and addressed.

2) I'm honestly disappointed in the way proposed changes to beige to fix it were brushed aside and feel discouraged about putting any effort into offering meaningful proposals.  That's not a hit at you Pre, you've done a lot of work and I appreciate you trying to salvage the situation here.

3) Regarding tanks: I would rather reduce the max tank amounts by 50-75%.  I like the fact that there is a very cheap unit (soldiers) coupled with a very expensive unit (tanks).  It makes ground fighting more dynamic.  The problem is maxed tanks are about double the power of maxed soldiers, so you really have little choice to use them in most circumstances and be competitive.

Tanks as an expensive supplement to soldiers is better than soldiers as a cheap supplement to tanks.

4) Not enough improvements are destroyed during war for improvements being lost to have a major impact.  At least in the upper tiers.  Maybe that could be addressed, and also add to the value of blitzes and help rebalance the air/ground balance, by allowing planes to target improvements.

Edited by Azaghul
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— Tank price changes, great!

— Gasoline and Munitions changes, thanks but it’s pretty balanced.

— Reserve system, nerfs the attacker

— New Spy, How is sending $10,000,000 going to be worse than $1,000,000? I don’t see an incentive/increase in odds for sending more money and resources.

Edited by PriestDuck
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I strongly dislike this. It basically is trying it's hardest to make blockading, and thus trading in general, not as important. The self-sufficiency meta would just make interacting with the market basically useless.

Cheaper tanks - Leads to people maxing out their milltaries easily through producing steel or using small amounts of money.

Reserve system - I dislike it, it's not well thought out from how I understand it. It basically means we'll have to micromanage more (if we're only given a short time for troops to be in reserve) by decommissioning troops to be at peak efficiency if we're going to be attacked.

Munitions and gas being used less - This basically just makes trading/having money less useful and manufacturing things for yourself more useful, I get that it's meant to help the defender in long wars, but I feel like this isn't a good way to handle that. In the current meta, strategically having stockpiles of these things should be encouraged, and this is basically just a."blockades shouldn't be damaging, trading isn't needed anyway" suggestion.

Giving resources to an ally through a blockade - I also dislike this, like before, it makes blockades less impactful, we need a replacement to beige. Not blockades.

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6 hours ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

Pff. Nice. So rather than actually look at ANYTHING we've offered, Alex just goes straight to Pre for an executive decision without discussion, testing, or for that matter even the slightest consideration.

Frick you.

Posted threads and adapted changes based on posts there and conversations in DMs on discord with people who talked to me. I also stated in the OP Alex did not want a solution that involved bringing back beige or something by a different name with the same feature at this time. Almost all suggestions involve a rework of beige so they weren't options at this time.

You're wrong on every account of your post. The threads have all been looked at. There has been discussion, though much shorter time frame thus far than I typically like -- that's also what this thread is for. Testing will come. Considerations are being made.


This is your chance to discuss. If you're rather use that time for unproductive posts then go ahead, but don't complain when features roll out which don't include your input because you failed to provide it during the opportunity to do so.

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6 hours ago, Azaghul said:

1) I really don't like the way the new system could nerf blitzes.  If both sides are building up their units in reserve, whoever strikes first will probably be at a disadvantage.  And if one side is building up first and the other side is waiting a couple of days, they can strike while their units are still in reserve after their opponents are knocked out.

The incentive to strike first right now is really significant for the politics of the game.  It leads to more wars compared to say CN, where there were (when I used to play) a lot more false starts when it came to potential wars.  There's a big political cost to being the "aggressor" that the first strike advantage is a good balance for.

I'm not sure how to fix it, just stating that this is a major issue that needs to be thought through thoroughly and addressed.

2) I'm honestly disappointed in the way proposed changes to beige to fix it were brushed aside and feel discouraged about putting any effort into offering meaningful proposals.  That's not a hit at you Pre, you've done a lot of work and I appreciate you trying to salvage the situation here.

3) Regarding tanks: I would rather reduce the max tank amounts by 50-75%.  I like the fact that there is a very cheap unit (soldiers) coupled with a very expensive unit (tanks).  It makes ground fighting more dynamic.  The problem is maxed tanks are about double the power of maxed soldiers, so you really have little choice to use them in most circumstances and be competitive.

Tanks as an expensive supplement to soldiers is better than soldiers as a cheap supplement to tanks.

4) Not enough improvements are destroyed during war for improvements being lost to have a major impact.  At least in the upper tiers.  Maybe that could be addressed, and also add to the value of blitzes and help rebalance the air/ground balance, by allowing planes to target improvements.

1) That's why the time to force off of reserve was introduced. It allows for the rebuilding process while impacting the ability to lose units in the opening wave. It adds a new dynamic to the start of wars with both sides trying to come out of reserves at optimal times. I did see the problem with this aspect in the OP in the original suggestion thread.

2) As am I. The reserve stuff was meant for just spies, not other units originally. I would rather be expanding upon your idea, but I have to work within the constraints I'm given.

3) Would reducing the max also reduce the damage each tank does? The casualties each tank takes? I think the cost route is the easier balance.

4) I've been harping on that for years. 

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I'm not sure how the unit cost + consumption changes will help the losing side in a war. Wouldn't it just makes it cheaper to hold someone down, and thus cheaper to have longer wars?

Maybe consider increasing the upkeep cost of active military units (while at war), as to give a penalty to long wars.

Also, if there isn't a delay between moving units between reserve and active, that seems like a broken mechanic. 

Edited by Borg
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Tbh, adjusting it for naval is warranted, as atm there's no incentive to use ships to remove ships due to their pathetic killing power, alongside them guzzling through gas/muns and losing you ships in the process (it's true that air results you in losing air, but at good enough odds you also kill more/similar amounts of planes while killing ships, and planes are cheaper to boot alongside doing a better job at killing said ships).

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Once a unit has been in reserve status for 10 days it is moved to active duty automatically.

This means a blitz won't do shit.

For example, let's assume there are two alliances, Alliance B and Alliance A. Alliance A blitzes Alliance B, who we will say are running max planes.

Alliance B can just decom any units they have (or even suicide them in), and start building into reserves, which cannot be touched by anything besides spies, and at extremely low casualties. Wars last at most for a period of 5 days, over these 5 days Alliance B can literally max out their military and keep it in reserve, because they're only moved into active duty in 10 days, the length of 2 wars.

Let's assume alliance A somehow ludicrously manages to 'win' the spy war from the initial contact and can even start spying Alliance B's military. Alliance B still has 10 days over which to rebuild their military, and come back out unscathed except for some infra damage. Even any superiority gained is worthless because they can simply wait for the wars to expire, and then attack.

Effectiveness of the blitz? Zero. 

Hotel? Trivago.

 

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You shouldn't be able to rebuild your entire military in reserve and then activate them all immediately - that's completely unfair to those winning the wars.  Let's say you have a city 15 nation being held down and zeroed by three city 12 nations.  All he needs to do is get his military maxed in reserve, come out at once (with 12 MAPs mind you) and can wreck the other side, get out of blockades, etc.  Basically, any time anyone has a city advantage on somebody else, they can wait to have the military advantage through this mechanism and then come out of reserve and win battles.  So if you're going to this reserve mechanic, there has to be some decent limits on how you activate them, otherwise, it's a really poor mechanic that basically removes the ability to do updeclares effectively.  

In real wars, if an opponent's military is wiped, you wouldn't see them fully replaced via some warehouse.  If I have GC/AS/Blockade, basically occupy that nation, how can they immediately dwarf my military at the snap of a finger and turn it around on me?

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16 hours ago, Prefontaine said:

1. Otherwise everyone would sit in reserve mode, then come all out after they were attacked. Attackers lose the opening salvo advantage without them being forced to eventually come out to active status.

Wait... your even admitting that this is a sloppy attempt at a change.

Edited by PriestDuck
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