New Project Discussion

[Abaddon]

I think a big issue I'm seeing reoccur is that you're either creating projects that are extremely overpowered or extremely useless. There seems to be very little middle-ground.

The changes to Pirate Economy coupled with Advanced Pirate Economy make these projects absolute no-brainers to purchase immediately. Raiding is already the most profitable way to play the game and you'll literally see c3s make more money than c35s when this get released. If you wanted higher low tier retention, you don't do it by designing the game so raiding at c3 for 200 days is the most optimal way to play the game.

If Military Expansion is released, it will probably be the most overpowered project in the game. AUP costs 600m and requires 45days of revenue + 60days of ROI to materialize. In comparison, Military Expansion gives you a profit of $1b at no cost lol. And you can just buy your city and delete the project. I mean you might as well just make c30 free, because it's the same thing. Like I'm not complaining, but these numbers make no sense.

Then you have the spy project which costs $400m? I think we'll reach the heat death of the solar system before you save enough spies for this to ROI. You either have to make the percentage way higher or significantly reduce the price if you want alliances to spend money on this or allow their players to spend money on this. Seems practically useless to 99% of the game.

Mars Landing and Bureau of Domestic Affairs are both absolutely useless bottom tier projects. I don't see the appeal in making projects a cosmetic part of the game when (again) nobody buys these, and if they do these are noob traps/literal scams at best.

[Prefontaine]

6 hours ago, Borg said:

Snip

Bureau is for people who don't want to plan ahead and be able to maybe get the land discount as well and then quickly go back to open markets. 

Harvest is getting it's numbers tweaked currently. Projects are no viewed as resource sinks in terms of costs to purchases. The can have a small impact, but 100 players buying a 2M food project isn't going to dent food counts significantly. It having a residual increase on food consumption is view as the smallest of sinks because it happens over time. Both the faucet and the sink need review for resources currently and they are being reviewed. 

Mars landing is just an expansion on Moon landing and is cosmetic for anyone who wants it. It was an additional project thrown onto the quota of projects I was requested for. It's not taking away from anything.

Military expansion is supposed to be strong, something everyone who meets the threshold should want. We're going to bump up the requirements so that it should be accessible by ~60% of current C29s.

ROI is not really something weighed into improvements that help you in states of war. Improvements that have a small military impact but may contribute to you winning a war where hundreds of millions are being done in damages.

2 hours ago, abaddon said:

Snip

Projects that benefit raiding should be essential for those who play in a raiding style. I don't see a problem with this? There are very few raid focused projects, it would make sense that the ones that exist are no-brainers for raiders.

Something has to be the strongest why not one that provides a free city around the time where city production starts becoming a grind? 

I'll copy and paste from above: ROI is not really something weighed into improvements that help you in states of war. Improvements that have a small military impact but may contribute to you winning a war where hundreds of millions are being done in damages.

Saying moon landing/mars landing are noob traps is a little odd when it requires the Space Program project as a pre requisite which not may new players have. Somewhere around 70 players got the moon landing. Complaining about a cosmetic seems odd to me. 

[Thalmor]

Bountiful Harvest - At first I was neutral, but resource inflation seems to be a bigger problem than cash inflation, so I think I'm okay with this. 

Mars Landing - Further escalations can be the construction of space stations (like the ISS). The final one can be a manned expedition to Alpha Centauri or something. Cosmetic resource sinks go brrrrr

Military Expansion - I can't benefit from this, so I'm against it. 

Advanced Surveillance Network - I want espionage to be developed more, so I'm down with this. 

[Sweeeeet Ronny D]

19 minutes ago, Thalmor said:

Bountiful Harvest - At first I was neutral, but resource inflation seems to be a bigger problem than cash inflation, so I think I'm okay with this.

I questions is cash inflation a thing?  With the rising costs of infra/land/cities, it should keep cash under control unless a large section of the player base decides to stop growing their nations.   Resource inflation is a thing because things that use resources are static, they dont get cheaper or more expensive, things that use resources cost what they cost for a brand new nation, and for a 3000 day old nation.

[Danzek]

9 hours ago, Sweeeeet Ronny D said:

I questions is cash inflation a thing?  With the rising costs of infra/land/cities, it should keep cash under control unless a large section of the player base decides to stop growing their nations.   Resource inflation is a thing because things that use resources are static, they dont get cheaper or more expensive, things that use resources cost what they cost for a brand new nation, and for a 3000 day old nation.

I dont really understand what you mean by static/non static, but agree cash inflation isn't a problem because it has infinite (beneficial) sinks, in terms of cities, land, infra. Projects are always going to be an inconsistent sink because its buy once. 

Technically manu has infinite sinks in the form of units/war but its apparently not sufficient anymore
1. we have one of the largest globals, and many of these resources are still growing (its largely round 1 that costs a lot and then its just cheap stat padding)

2. alliances aren't going to perma war just because it has become cheaper (war isn't always a positive sink like cities are)

There is still inflation, you can look at the money over time graph, it's all relative (i.e. many resources have increased more so than cash has)

Edited May 17, 2023 by Borg

[Ketya]

Given it is much simpler to code projects, why don’t you guys just implement them… and what could be the worst thing if they are not useful? Nothing. 

[Dullard]

On 5/11/2023 at 1:24 PM, Prefontaine said:

We're providing some Projects for approval to add to the docket of coming content. We want to have these go through a feedback phase so we can add them when needed.

Already Approved Projects and Project Changes :
 

New Projects Designs:

New Project: Bountiful Harvest
Requirements: Green Technologies
Cost: 0$
Food: 2,000,000
Aluminum: 50,000
Steel: 40,000
Gasoline: 30,000
Effect: Max commerce percentage rate is increased by 9. The nation can build 3 more supermarkets per city. Food consumption increased by rate by 15%. Nations in war take an additional 5% increase rate in food consumption. Adjustment incoming.

 

New Project: Mars Landing
Requirement: Space Program
Cost: $200,000,000
Oil: 20,000
Aluminum: 20,000
Steel: 20,000
Munitions: 20,000
Gas: 20,000
Uranium: 10,000
Effect: Similar to Moon Landing, provides a special achievement. A Leaderboard will be kept to track nations on when they complete the Mars Landing. If a nation has both the Moon Landing and Mars Landing they will receive an an in-game award in addition to the achievements and gain a daily boost to approval rating.

 

New Project: Military Expansion
Requirement: At least 3,500,000 Soldier kills, 100,000 Tanks destroyed, 10,000 Aircraft destroyed, 1,000 ships destroyed
Cost: $0
Effect: The next city purchased after this project is bought for the first time is reduced to $0. This project can only be purchased buy a player with less than 30 cities. This project cannot be deleted until a player is at 30 cities or higher. 

 

New Project: Advanced Surveillance Network
Project Requirements: Intelligence Agency, Advanced Urban Planning
Cost: $300,000,000
Aluminum: 20,000
Steel: 20,000
Uranium: 10,000
Effect: Spy attacks against your nation are 10% less likely to succeed and the attacker is 10% more likely to be identified. 

 

If you have feedback on a specific project, please identify which one and which aspect of it. This is a feedback thread and the feedback provided can change what's listed in the new section. The items in the already approved queue is just so people don't suggest content already planned to come out.

As for timelines, Alex stated sometime after the global war for projects. Beyond that I don't have an answer for you. I don't keep the timetables on when it comes out.

 

Thanks. 

What are the adjustments for bountiful harvest?

[SleepingNinja]

The game needs more military based projects to help balance the amount of econ related projects, the biggest problem right now is it's easy to get all the military projects and have tons of excess project slots to add in all the best econ related projects which maximize a nations efficiency, adding in military projects to force players to decide between military vulnerability over econ maximization can help to balance out where the game stands.

Example Project

Project Name: National Draft
Project Requirements: Propaganda Bureau, International Trade Center, Urban Planning, C30+
Project Cost: 50M, 150k Muni, 150k Gas, 2M Food, 150k Steel, 150k Alum
Project Effect: Increases daily buys 10%, +1 spy per day, It does not increase your caps on these units, or affect Missile, Nuclear Weapon. -5% Commerce.

Projects like this force usage of project slots like ITC which increase commerce to over 100%, this lowers the effectiveness of ITC, uses an extra project slot and increases military function for nations during wartime which will be a necessity. The idea would be to balance econ and wartime rather than just the pure econ we keep getting added onto the game that just effectively make whales more efficient with their own growth. Note : don't take the project cost too seriously, it's just a placeholder it's the effect of the project that's important in the above example.

[Sweeeeet Ronny D]

1 hour ago, SleepingNinja said:

The game needs more military based projects to help balance the amount of econ related projects, the biggest problem right now is it's easy to get all the military projects and have tons of excess project slots to add in all the best econ related projects which maximize a nations efficiency, adding in military projects to force players to decide between military vulnerability over econ maximization can help to balance out where the game stands.

Example Project

Project Name: National Draft
Project Requirements: Propaganda Bureau, International Trade Center, Urban Planning, C30+
Project Cost: 50M, 150k Muni, 150k Gas, 2M Food, 150k Steel, 150k Alum
Project Effect: Increases daily buys 10%, +1 spy per day, It does not increase your caps on these units, or affect Missile, Nuclear Weapon. -5% Commerce.

Projects like this force usage of project slots like ITC which increase commerce to over 100%, this lowers the effectiveness of ITC, uses an extra project slot and increases military function for nations during wartime which will be a necessity. The idea would be to balance econ and wartime rather than just the pure econ we keep getting added onto the game that just effectively make whales more efficient with their own growth. Note : don't take the project cost too seriously, it's just a placeholder it's the effect of the project that's important in the above example.

So instead you want to make a whale project that just makes us even harder to kill?  This is obviously what it is, as only whales could afford it.  It already takes 2-3 months of peace to pick up a new city, losing 5% income adds maybe a week at most to that timer, I would pick that up in a heartbeat.

[SleepingNinja]

32 minutes ago, Sweeeeet Ronny D said:

So instead you want to make a whale project that just makes us even harder to kill?  This is obviously what it is, as only whales could afford it.  It already takes 2-3 months of peace to pick up a new city, losing 5% income adds maybe a week at most to that timer, I would pick that up in a heartbeat.

Sorry I should have made it clear not to focus too much on any of the actual numbers behind the idea but the idea itself. That 5% could be a 10% income decrease or instead of a 10% increase to buys only a 2.5% increase. The focus I was trying to bring across is to add projects that have positive and negative effects but can't be completely ignored like military salvage.

[Anarchist Empire]

Pirate Economy looks good for the upgrade, just hope I'm able buy it before it's jacked up in price. So support that, but will try getting it before the price increase.

Nvm, doesn't enhance the existing project. New project to make it better. More projects the better, so cool with that.

Military Expansion looks good to help people catch up easier, if they can get an expensive city free. Not bad to make it a little easier to catch up.

I consider pointless achievements, pointless. However might as well add them as resource sink for those who care about that. Don't have a problem with any of these. Much better than doing so everything costs more resources as a resource sink.

If achievements add some benefit, such each achievement you gain, gives you 1% Population Increase to all your cities or something. Would matter more, but if just a resource sink; sure some will do it anyways. 1% pop was just example, but benefit could anything. This game when I get achievements since they're pointless, I don't really care.

If the change is made to make it a lot more expensive to catch up to those over 50 Cities; should make Activity Center last up to 50 Cities & the bonus from it increase with your city count up to City 20 at least. Then after 30 the benefit starts decreasing until none when you get to City 55. Balance out their advantage in getting their cities before the increase. If Activity Center compensates for the sudden cost increase in cities; then it wouldn't make it harder for newer nations to catch up.

Edited June 8, 2023 by Anarchist Empire

[Anarchist Empire]

So if I buy this project at 29 Cities, could boost 30 Cities with it & delete it right after? (Making nations plan on going that high is a good thing if it does benefit them for thinking ahead.)

New Project: Military Expansion
Requirement: At least 3,500,000 Soldier kills, 100,000 Tanks destroyed, 10,000 Aircraft destroyed, 1,000 ships destroyed
Cost: $0
Effect: The next city purchased after this project is bought for the first time is reduced to $0. This project can only be purchased buy a player with less than 30 cities. This project cannot be deleted until a player is at 30 cities or higher. 

I think most of these look good, but the Advanced Pirate Economy one could be made better. Maybe a 10% boost or something? Even 20% or something high to make it exciting. Need several prerequisites, make it something cool to aim for. Even the ones I wouldn't use, gives people something to buy and more content is good. Military Expansion One and Pirate Economy look the most interesting to me, but 5% boost is kind of low. (Sure I'll have enough kills or whatever by the time I'm 29 Cities, which would seem the best time to use the military expansion.)

The spy and other thing are things which nations who have a ton of stuff already might go for, but pirate project thing is like a route people can go and should make it worthwhile. Marginal benefits aren't that exciting when buying really expensive projects, but do like the idea of the Pirate one.

Could it be worth me prioritzing Activity Center, PB, Pirate Economy and Advanced Pirate Economy over getting Intel Agency. It should be good enough for that. One of the better project ideas, just seems the benefit should be higher percent. 20% at least maybe, but more possibly. Not going to argue with you on cost, just make it worth the cost.

New Project: Advanced Surveillance Network

Not even sure if this is better than PB, so not as exciting. However something for people to edge out their spy odds with the extra money and slots. (Advanced Pirate Economy is similar in it's hard to tell if it's better than Pirate Economy, but guess they stack.)

Edited June 12, 2023 by Anarchist Empire