Development Team Update, January 2023.

[Azaghul]

On 2/8/2023 at 9:48 PM, Ketya said:

You can simply make cities cost money and raws. Probably the easiest change to execute (coding-wise), doesn’t unnecessarily complicate the game and doesn’t really favor a tier over the other. If it doesn’t work, easy enough to revert too.

This. I'd also be in favor of starting it at say, city 20. After city 20 cities stop costing more cash but starting costing raws and/or manufacturing.

[Malakai]

On 1/18/2023 at 9:56 AM, Prefontaine said:

• Spy Counts and Spy Odds will no longer be hidden or ambiguous. Players, through bots and API data have been able to calculate spy odds and counts with the current system. To allow all players, even those without bots, to play on an even field and reduce the API request and data scraping, this information will now be provided. Spy counts will be visible to all players. When performing a spy attack, odds will be shown rounded to the nearest percent. 

Really? Are the scraping and API calls really slowing down the server that much? You'd think that if you wanted to make a meaningful contribution to this aspect of the game you would shorten the 15 day waiting game like we've been asking for. The fact that you want to reward laziness bothers me.

Edited February 27, 2023 by Malakai

[Village]

23 hours ago, Malakai said:

Really? Are the scraping and API calls really slowing down the server that much? You'd think that if you wanted to make a meaningful contribution to this aspect of the game you would shorten the 15 day waiting game like we've been asking for. The fact that you want to reward laziness bothers me.

When the calls peak they do have a significant effect on the game, there's been a number of instances where the game has crashed due to massive numbers of calls. The primary reason however is the other part of that sentence, "to play on an even field." The server could continue to handle the spikes in traffic and the regular load, however there is no way for the game to provide spy odds without people using scraping to gain a competitive advantage and learn exact spy counts. As a temporary solution, spy counts are to be made public to allow everyone the ability to see and even the playing field.

[Pacific Isalands]

I was using Resource Production Center and I don't need to buy uranium. 
I didn't notice to change and my city didn't have power at all

[Nyx]

2 hours ago, Pacific Isalands said:

I was using Resource Production Center and I don't need to buy uranium. 
I didn't notice to change and my city didn't have power at all

Same thing happened to me, but overall the worth of the resources you'd get from the Resource Production Center is less than the bonus Activity Center gets you, so you can easily buy uranium or perhaps get some mines (I just slightly changed up my build to get some mines).

[Malakai]

On 2/28/2023 at 9:24 AM, Village said:

When the calls peak they do have a significant effect on the game, there's been a number of instances where the game has crashed due to massive numbers of calls. The primary reason however is the other part of that sentence, "to play on an even field." The server could continue to handle the spikes in traffic and the regular load, however there is no way for the game to provide spy odds without people using scraping to gain a competitive advantage and learn exact spy counts. As a temporary solution, spy counts are to be made public to allow everyone the ability to see and even the playing field.

I'm moderately okay with the adjustment based on the fact the game crashed as a result; the justification of evening the playing field feels more like an excuse. Additionally, nerfing the effect of having 5+ days worth of spies wiped out in one operation would go further to making this area of the game more competitive and fair than making my counts public ever will.

Edited March 2, 2023 by Malakai

[Village]

11 hours ago, Malakai said:

I'm moderately okay with the adjustment based on the fact the game crashed as a result; the justification of evening the playing field feels more like an excuse. Additionally, nerfing the effect of having 5+ days worth of spies wiped out in one operation would go further to making this area of the game more competitive and fair than making my counts public ever will.

I think the design team is going to do some things with spies, I'm not sure exactly what at the moment. And evening the playing field really is the core reason, the crashing is actually more of the excuse. There's not really anything we can do about preventing people from simply scraping odds to get accurate counts, so the only real solution to even it out (which is what the design team and game in general want) is to make those counts freely available rather than gating it behind a tech and knowledge barrier. The plan in the longer term is to revamp the whole system to some degree and improve it all.

[Kohai Ky]

On 1/18/2023 at 10:56 AM, Prefontaine said:

Changes to Pirate Economy Project: Pirate Economy now provides a 5% bonus to loot from ground attacks.

Does pirate economy still have an extra slot. Nvm it was in a comment, sorry

Edited March 20, 2023 by Kohai Ky