Game Discussion: Follow-up Beige Poll

[KindaEpicMoah]

 

Hello everyone, 

Lately there has been some debate regarding beige. As some of you may have seen, a new beige system we developed was posted with the aim to fix the issues that were seen on the test server. However, some counterarguments were made in relation to our new proposal. 

Currently, the beige system works so that whenever you lose a war, you get 2 days of beige (recovery time). This amount of beige can stack on each other and if a war expires, neither side gets beige. 

In an attempt to eliminate the possibility of beige cycling, and by extent, eliminate the need for beige baiting to break a cycle, the design team came up with multiple ideas of implementing a new beige system. Last week, we polled potential changes here, and after idea one received the most votes, we made some adjustments to the system based on feedback given regarding offensive beige time and how expired wars give beige. 

 

The new beige system would be:

• Players are capped at a maximum 7.5 days of beige (players are given 2.5 days per defensive beige, 1 day per offensive beige).
• Beige only starts counting down when all wars (both offensive and defensive) have expired.
• All wars that end from from war expires result in beige time for the nation with the lowest resistance (in the case of a tie, neither side gets beige).
• Expired wars do not give loot/do not deal infra damage like normal beiges.

 

The purpose of this new system is to guarantee the opportunity for the losing side to fight back. 

However, we have also heard concerns that, since alliances are risk averse and do not want to lose, this change will result in larger dogpiles, and thus there would still effectively be no ability to fight against the (way larger) enemy. 

We're bringing this proposal to the public, to vote on whether people would like to implement the proposed system, or keep the current beige system (and send the design team back to the drawing table). 

Addendum: The controversy regarding the implementation of delayed beige to deter offensive beige baiting has not gone unnoticed by the design team. We understand that this is an issue people feel strongly about, however for the purposes of this post, please focus solely on the issue of the proposed vs current beige system. We would prefer to have a separate discussion about that mechanic since it is independent of this issue. 

 

We are thankful for any feedback in the comments. We are not against changing this system further if other important concerns get raised, but we wanted to poll the public to see if they'd prefer the current system or a system that guarantees the opportunity to rebuild and fight back.

Edited September 21, 2023 by KindaEpicMoah

[REX]

I feel like the concern of dogpiles shouldn’t be affected by the new changes. While it may be true that immediately if/when the changes are implemented there are more dogpiles as alliances work through new war strategies, I think for everyone’s joy of the game, we will come back to a similar meta to recently of more mini spheres and 1v1 wars. The changes proposed will take away a significant portion of the blitz advantage that currently dominates wars and allows the blitzed alliance a legitimate chance to fight back. Even in the case of a dogpile, it allows the losing aa to have more control how they want to lose. 
 

While there may be some areas that the new changes may affect the game for the worse, I don’t think that the concern of more dogpiles should be prohibitive. 

[BettaChecka]

2 minutes ago, REX said:

I feel like the concern of dogpiles shouldn’t be affected by the new changes. While it may be true that immediately if/when the changes are implemented there are more dogpiles as alliances work through new war strategies, I think for everyone’s joy of the game, we will come back to a similar meta to recently of more mini spheres and 1v1 wars. The changes proposed will take away a significant portion of the blitz advantage that currently dominates wars and allows the blitzed alliance a legitimate chance to fight back. Even in the case of a dogpile, it allows the losing aa to have more control how they want to lose. 
 

While there may be some areas that the new changes may affect the game for the worse, I don’t think that the concern of more dogpiles should be prohibitive. 

A lot of suggestions that get brought up if not all will always result in larger dogpiles tbh. How it is now you get rewarded in an even matchup for going on the offensive, being proactive and hitting first, even more evident in giving the ability for weaker attackers to have the chance of winning against a larger opponent.

If you provide buffs to the losing side, less and less alliances would feel comfortable going for even wars and almost every single war hence forth will be dogpiles. 

At most you will get a few of the extremely competent alliances, KT, Eclipse or Singularity to attempt even wars.

As it is dogpiles are encouraged by the fact of being able to share the damage out so you don't lose as much. If you add the incentive to dogpile by buffing the losing side in wars, you will just get more and more dogpiles.

[Looking]

1 hour ago, KindaEpicMoah said:

 

Hello everyone, 

Lately there has been some debate regarding beige. As some of you may have seen, a new beige system we developed was posted with the aim to fix the issues that were seen on the test server. However, some counterarguments were made in relation to our new proposal. 

Currently, the beige system works so that whenever you lose a war, you get 2 days of beige (recovery time). This amount of beige can stack on each other and if a war expires, neither side gets beige. 

In an attempt to eliminate the possibility of beige cycling, and by extent, eliminate the need for beige baiting to break a cycle, the design team came up with multiple ideas of implementing a new beige system. Last week, we polled potential changes here, and after idea one received the most votes, we made some adjustments to the system based on feedback given regarding offensive beige time and how expired wars give beige. 

 

The new beige system would be:

• Players are capped at a maximum 7.5 days of beige (players are given 2.5 days per defensive beige, 1 day per offensive beige).
• Beige only starts counting down when all wars (both offensive and defensive) have expired.
• All wars that end from from war expires result in beige time for the nation with the lowest resistance (in the case of a tie, neither side gets beige).
• Expired wars do not give loot/do not deal infra damage like normal beiges.

 

The purpose of this new system is to guarantee the opportunity for the losing side to fight back. 

However, we have also heard concerns that, since alliances are risk averse and do not want to lose, this change will result in larger dogpiles, and thus there would still effectively be no ability to fight against the (way larger) enemy. 

We're bringing this proposal to the public, to vote on whether people would like to implement the proposed system, or keep the current beige system (and send the design team back to the drawing table). 

Addendum: The controversy regarding the implementation of delayed beige to deter offensive beige baiting has not gone unnoticed by the design team. We understand that this is an issue people feel strongly about, however for the purposes of this post, please focus solely on the issue of the proposed vs current beige system. We would prefer to have a separate discussion about that mechanic since it is independent of this issue. 

 

We are thankful for any feedback in the comments. We are not against changing this system further if other important concerns get raised, but we wanted to poll the public to see if they'd prefer the current system or a system that guarantees the opportunity to rebuild and fight back.

i think it is a very good idea for nations to fully recover if they lose a war.

[Anarchist Empire]

Let's say hypothetical, an alliance wanted keep someone blockaded & unable to rebuild. Couldn't they keep blockading, never give a nation more than 2.5 days of beige, have new nation declare once they get off beige; then just keep repeating that? Capped it so 3 Defensive War on you will max your beige time; assuming they finish all those wars at once; rather than spread them out. Offensive Wars are out of their control, so if they are attempting something like that offensive war should be able to throw them off.

Beige is suppose to in theory give nations some time to rebuild shit before more war, but don't really see how this change to beige is a benefit. Sure people can survive with less beige, but seems like an odd change. Who cares if offensives wars can give beige if attacked? Assuming someone has max beige with this, guess they have 2.5 days longer than it takes to max military on something zeroed; so good enough I guess. So meh change, don't see the point. (People will adapt to changes & make their playstyles match. Changes to beige game breaking? No, but seems kind of a pointless movement of numbers.

I view what is trying to fix? Nations are having to much rebuild time between wars? Want to make it easier on Dictators who are highly controlling in wars & get pissed if anyone beiges not told to? I don't see benefit and don't think beige was broken before & see no real improvement with this. Guess we'll see how it goes. Keeping a nation pinned forever should be hassle as hell. Where they can try bugging every alliance person might declare on for a free beige, not a way to be popular bugging everyone at the whims of the enemy. 2 nations I would think would be enough to keep a nation perpetually blockaded, since wars last longer than the beige time. So with a 3rd, allows flexibility in declare times, etc. (Since nations can get beige time with offensive wars, it's still possible for nations to break it. So not game breaking either way as it was.)

Edited July 17, 2023 by Anarchist Empire

[Rageproject]

Just make it 3 days beige per war you lose and 1.5 day for an expired war on a losing nation. And start beige timers as they occur. Call it a day. 

Edited July 17, 2023 by Rageproject

[Looking]

Just now, Rageproject said:

Just make it 3 days beige per war you lose and 1.5 day for an expired war on a losing nation. Call it a day. 

yep i agree. and is that a dog with glasses?

[Anarchist Empire]

"Beige only starts counting down when all wars (both offensive and defensive) have expired.|
"

This is weird as well, so how many wars can an alliance declare on someone before giving them a single moment of beige then? Since if they never hit beige, can have someone replace any wars finished. If person is so dead, haven't been able to do any attacks for several rounds of wars; they're probably  bound to get out eventually if they're beating up on someone already dead forever. Still don't like this delay.

Someone is slotted for 3 wars. Can replace 2 of those; then replace the other when the second round of declares is about to finish next & keep repeating to keep them off beige as long as possible. Max they only get 7.5 days anyways. Can get a ton of wars on someone without them getting a moment of peace I guess? Even with expired wars giving beige, doesn't matter if they can prevent the beige from ever happening at all.

Maybe game is easy mode in some ways and nations should be stronger than letting that happen to themselves without them doing a ton of damage & can just take a break if enemy is persistent enough on something like that. Still if beige is needed, could be game breaking in some ways; not sure though. (if the enemy is wreckless, you might get enough time to rebuild your military for another round.) Especially higher city count nations, if they get blockaded with no fuel or ammo; almost no amount of time they can't be pinned by organized nations. Feel like doing so nations can't try building up to keep putting up a fight; that's when nations start dropping during globals though. Someone doing damage to me and not stopping wouldn't make me quit? Why? Since I could do damage back, keep doing damage back if they want.

When I think of my slots as income, I roughly estimate they're around 2 days if trying to finish them quickly without bothering with math. Pretty sure they can last over 3 days though.

Edited July 17, 2023 by Anarchist Empire

[KindaEpicMoah]

1 hour ago, Anarchist Empire said:

Let's say hypothetical, an alliance wanted keep someone blockaded & unable to rebuild. Couldn't they keep blockading, never give a nation more than 2.5 days of beige, have new nation declare once they get off beige; then just keep repeating that? Capped it so 3 Defensive War on you will max your beige time; assuming they finish all those wars at once; rather than spread them out. Offensive Wars are out of their control, so if they are attempting something like that offensive war should be able to throw them off.

 

No, because beige would not count down while the rest of their wars are active, so the nation would remain at 2.5 days of beige until all of their wars expire, in which case their beige will increase to 7.5 days. 

 

21 minutes ago, Anarchist Empire said:

This is weird as well, so how many wars can an alliance declare on someone before giving them a single moment of beige then? Since if they never hit beige, can have someone replace any wars finished. If person is so dead, haven't been able to do any attacks for several rounds of wars; they're probably  bound to get out eventually if they're beating up on someone already dead forever. Still don't like this delay.

 

Three, the same as before. You're guaranteed to get out after at the very most 5 days since expires will give the person with the lowest resistance beige (in this case, likely the person who's pinned). 

 

 

[Anarchist Empire]

Just now, KindaEpicMoah said:

No, because beige would not count down while the rest of their wars are active, so the nation would remain at 2.5 days of beige until all of their wars expire, in which case their beige will increase to 7.5 days. 

 

Three, the same as before. You're guaranteed to get out after at the very most 5 days since expires will give the person with the lowest resistance beige (in this case, likely the person who's pinned). 

 

 

Guess I misread that, by not counting down guess beige doesn't start expiring until then. Thanks for clarification.

[kbommer]

There's so many problems with that, not only taking away point of tactics in wars so alliances don't fight at all and resource accumulation goes through the roof, allowing to keep any nation permamently in war and stack their beige timer infinitely if there's enough coordinated attacks, but it's also another thing that would make raiders' life miserable - earnings are already 3x lower than they used to be for new nations, how far can it be taken before people don't even try to raid their way to c20 and just quit?

[Looking]

Just now, kbommer said:

There's so many problems with that, not only taking away point of tactics in wars so alliances don't fight at all and resource accumulation goes through the roof, allowing to keep any nation permamently in war and stack their beige timer infinitely if there's enough coordinated attacks, but it's also another thing that would make raiders' life miserable - earnings are already 3x lower than they used to be for new nations, how far can it be taken before people don't even try to raid their way to c20 and just quit?

that is so anti-war and anti-raid

[Anarchist Empire]

If it's the beige doesn't start expiring until all wars finished, guess this just might make getting enough beige to rebuild your military easier in globals. Since hard not to beige a nation if at war with them who wants it unless doing zero attacks from the start, maybe 1 day for offensive limits how easy it is to gain a bunch of beige from offensive wars.

Keep beige system, change it, whatever I guess. Shouldn't be averse to change.

[Lucianus]

Alliances are organizing wars not to lose or to stalemate, but to win. There is rarely an offensive with the expectation that the attacking side is going to lose to war. If you declare a war, you want to win it.

Regardless of the system, that basis of alliances acting in their own best interest, which they logically will do, is not going to change. Thus, alliances will have only one option to still guarantee a victory if blitz advantage is effectively eliminated, and that is to organize coalitions large enough to win counterblitzes.

As a result, those counterblitzes won't be worth it as the attacking coalition will be large enough to win it, and thus, this new system, even though it wants to give an opportunity to fight back, will not achieve that. The main consequence of the beige changes is larger dogpiles, it's not extra opportunities to fight back.

[KindaEpicMoah]

Just now, Anarchist Empire said:

If it's the beige doesn't start expiring until all wars finished, guess this just might make getting enough beige to rebuild your military easier in globals. Since hard not to beige a nation if at war with them who wants it unless doing zero attacks from the start, maybe 1 day for offensive limits how easy it is to gain a bunch of beige from offensive wars.

Yeah that's the general idea. Even with offensives giving only one day of beige, you'll have enough time to rebuild to max mil (albeit without an extra rebuy) if you declare 5 offensives and all of your wars beige you, regardless of whether you have defensives or not. 

[Anri]

21 minutes ago, kbommer said:

There's so many problems with that, not only taking away point of tactics in wars so alliances don't fight at all and resource accumulation goes through the roof, allowing to keep any nation permamently in war and stack their beige timer infinitely if there's enough coordinated attacks, but it's also another thing that would make raiders' life miserable - earnings are already 3x lower than they used to be for new nations, how far can it be taken before people don't even try to raid their way to c20 and just quit?

With the current system you are able to keep nations infinitely pinned down through beige cycling, never giving them a chance to rebuild. With the new system they can only declare 3 wars on you before you are guaranteed 7.5 days of beige (assuming you declared no offensives). The beige still applies to you, it simply doesn't countdown so you are safe from being cycled and you get time to rebuild.

 

Also this doesn't effect inactive raiding in the slightest, so not sure how that's relevant.

Edited July 18, 2023 by Anri
Inactive raiding specified

[kbommer]

Just now, Anri said:

With the current system you are able to keep nations infinitely pinned down through beige cycling, never giving them a chance to rebuild. With the new system they can only declare 3 wars on you before you are guaranteed 7.5 days of beige (assuming you declared no offensives). The beige still applies to you, it simply doesn't countdown so you are safe from being cycled and you get time to rebuild.

 

Also this doesn't effect raiding in the slightest, so not sure how that's relevant.

How wouldn't longer beige times have no influence on how long good targets are unavailable? If now I can have 25% reasonable targets and 75% of ones that don't give much but are better than nothing I can keep my daily earnings higher compared to having 15-20% reasonable targets and 80-85% of targets that barely give anything. It wouldn't be even 7,5 days of beige for them because almost always at least 1 raider takes longer to finish his raid so these targets would spend far longer in beige compared to now. 

 

It doesn't change much that few nations can keep single nations pinned down currently since it would be the case only for nations that aren't part of alliance, and in current state of game they're generally irrelevant and suggested beige changes wouldn't make it any different, and in alliance wars when single side has significant advantage - and that not only wouldn't be fixed by these changes since stronger side will still be stronger, but it would also de facto lead to only having wars that are one sided since blitz wouldn't give any advantage to weaker side so wars would happen only if their result would be decided before war even begins. 

 

On top of that if beige timer doesn't count untill last war doesn't end it means that someone may abuse that and in cooperation with other nation make his beige last almost 14 days instead of 7,5 days: 3x 2,5 days from lost def, but soon before loosing he declares on a friend who makes single winning attack on him and keeps his beige timer locked for 5 days until war expires and 1,5 days from loosing offensive wars, that's 7,5+5+1,5 days - 1TC which results in 2 weeks of beige if someone wants to skip huge part of global war to save his infra. And it's not matter of if but of how much would it be abused, especially since such person may declare on someone who actually can't beat him but isn't in any way related to them and that wouldn't even be against the rules! 

[KindaEpicMoah]

Just now, kbommer said:

On top of that if beige timer doesn't count untill last war doesn't end it means that someone may abuse that and in cooperation with other nation make his beige last almost 14 days instead of 7,5 days: 3x 2,5 days from lost def, but soon before loosing he declares on a friend who makes single winning attack on him and keeps his beige timer locked for 5 days until war expires and 1,5 days from loosing offensive wars, that's 7,5+5+1,5 days - 1TC which results in 2 weeks of beige if someone wants to skip huge part of global war to save his infra. 

That is quite literally slotfilling.

Edited July 18, 2023 by KindaEpicMoah

[Looking]

Just now, kbommer said:

How wouldn't longer beige times have no influence on how long good targets are unavailable? If now I can have 25% reasonable targets and 75% of ones that don't give much but are better than nothing I can keep my daily earnings higher compared to having 15-20% reasonable targets and 80-85% of targets that barely give anything. It wouldn't be even 7,5 days of beige for them because almost always at least 1 raider takes longer to finish his raid so these targets would spend far longer in beige compared to now. 

 

It doesn't change much that few nations can keep single nations pinned down currently since it would be the case only for nations that aren't part of alliance, and in current state of game they're generally irrelevant and suggested beige changes wouldn't make it any different, and in alliance wars when single side has significant advantage - and that not only wouldn't be fixed by these changes since stronger side will still be stronger, but it would also de facto lead to only having wars that are one sided since blitz wouldn't give any advantage to weaker side so wars would happen only if their result would be decided before war even begins. 

 

On top of that if beige timer doesn't count untill last war doesn't end it means that someone may abuse that and in cooperation with other nation make his beige last almost 14 days instead of 7,5 days: 3x 2,5 days from lost def, but soon before loosing he declares on a friend who makes single winning attack on him and keeps his beige timer locked for 5 days until war expires and 1,5 days from loosing offensive wars, that's 7,5+5+1,5 days - 1TC which results in 2 weeks of beige if someone wants to skip huge part of global war to save his infra. And it's not matter of if but of how much would it be abused, especially since such person may declare on someone who actually can't beat him but isn't in any way related to them and that wouldn't even be against the rules! 

Still anti raid and anti war! Even more so this time!

[kbommer]

Just now, KindaEpicMoah said:

That is quite literally slotfilling.

You miss the point. Slot filling as a rule was made in order to prevent using friends to fill your defensive slots so noone can attack you. Making the changes suggested here gives us new threat, declaring on anyone - said nation that would be declared doesn't have to be friend and cooperate with you in any way, they just have to be uncapable of causing same damage that alliance you're at war with would otherwise, and even more, it's enough if they're just inactive, that way not only you may literally fight them and win so any slot filling/no intention to fight doesn't apply to you, you still get far more beige than reasonable and what suggested changes intend to do, because this way you can change 7,5 days of beige into 12,5 days of beige (-1 turn change).

 

Said change would bring new threats of unfair behavior that couldn't even be punished with current rules and it's hard to make rule that would punish such behavior without collateral damage to people who actually played fair. 

[Looking]

Just now, kbommer said:

You miss the point. Slot filling as a rule was made in order to prevent using friends to fill your defensive slots so noone can attack you. Making the changes suggested here gives us new threat, declaring on anyone - said nation that would be declared doesn't have to be friend and cooperate with you in any way, they just have to be uncapable of causing same damage that alliance you're at war with would otherwise, and even more, it's enough if they're just inactive, that way not only you may literally fight them and win so any slot filling/no intention to fight doesn't apply to you, you still get far more beige than reasonable and what suggested changes intend to do, because this way you can change 7,5 days of beige into 12,5 days of beige (-1 turn change).

 

Said change would bring new threats of unfair behavior that couldn't even be punished with current rules and it's hard to make rule that would punish such behavior without collateral damage to people who actually played fair. 

so i am getting anti war vibes from you. even a scantily clothed girl would make a better point than your moot point

even tho raiding is cool and upvote this if you love or like raiding

Edited July 18, 2023 by Looking

[Anarchist Empire]

Even if someone gets like an extra 5 days of beige by using his slots carefully, who really cares? lol, could see someone doing similar stuff even without coordinating. Declare 5 wars before you're beiged. Kill them with nukes or missiles maybe if they don't beige you and rest of your military is wrecked. lol

Nation is probably desperate if seeking beiges with slots, better they have some hope to keep fighting than quit. (Probably ways to benefit from this, but I'll figure that out later.)

Edited July 18, 2023 by Anarchist Empire

[Ramona]

3 hours ago, kbommer said:

On top of that if beige timer doesn't count untill last war doesn't end it means that someone may abuse that and in cooperation with other nation make his beige last almost 14 days instead of 7,5 days: 3x 2,5 days from lost def, but soon before loosing he declares on a friend who makes single winning attack on him and keeps his beige timer locked for 5 days until war expires and 1,5 days from loosing offensive wars, that's 7,5+5+1,5 days - 1TC which results in 2 weeks of beige if someone wants to skip huge part of global war to save his infra. And it's not matter of if but of how much would it be abused, especially since such person may declare on someone who actually can't beat him but isn't in any way related to them and that wouldn't even be against the rules! 

Me when I get beiged 8 times to save my infra. 😎😎😎

[Malakai]

We are walking with a busted leg as it is. Using the proposed beige change is like shooting yourself in the good leg and hoping it fixes the bad one.

Lets forego reinvention of the wheel in favor of minor fixes to the system we have until we can come up with a method that makes sense. 

[Sketchy]

The beige system is fine as it is. The new system completely eliminates aggressor advantage and makes updeclaring wars unwinnable.

Can we get some non war updates other than projects for a change?