Game Development Discussion: Expanded Updeclare Range and Expanded City Timer Grace Period

[Village]

Hey everyone,

My Rant (TLDR: sorry things broke)

First off, just wanted to thank you all so so so much for your patience during all the war issues we’ve been having. I’m sorry that the test server didn’t get everything, in the end it looks like all the various MAP, superiority, declare, victory, and other random issues were all associated with one deadlocking issue. In English, that basically means that due to PHP’s non-existent default error handling, some stuff was randomly not happening and things weren’t properly being reported to myself or to you guys that something went wrong, which basically meant I got to spend weeks debugging an issue I couldn’t see or reproduce, which was...painful lots and lots of fun!!!!

The Actual Point Of The Post

In other news though, I’m back on the new content train so there’ll be some new posts about that in the coming little while, and to start off we wanted some feedback on a simple change to updeclare ranges (obviously coming out after the current war) and a change to the city timer grace period.

Updeclare Range Change

The Goal

• To prevent larger nations from being able to build their score up to a point that no one can declare war on them anymore
• Allow smaller nations to push up into higher tiers if they so choose

The Change

• Modifying the updeclare range to the community’s choice of the following options:
  • No change (you can declare on nations up to 1.75x your score)
  • 2.5x
  • 3x
  • 3.5x
  • No cap

Please vote above and comment below to let us know what you think!

City Timer Grace Period Change

The Goal

• As the average city count has increased over time, it has become more difficult for new nations to grow up to what is considered a relevant tier. This is partially due to the time and financial constraints city timers impose. Therefore, the goal of this change is to reduce the effect of the time constraints and enable new players to catch up more quickly (as long as they have the money to do so)

The Change

• Modifying the city timer grace period to the community’s choice of the following options:
  • No change (no city timers until you reach C10)
  • C15
  • C20

Once again, please vote above and comment below to let us know what you think!

Have a great night everyone, and look out for more posts ahead! 🙂

[im317]

cant you also declare on nations up to x ranks higher or lower then you? voted no change and 15 cities. if someone can buy cities 11-15 and still have money to buy cities 16-20 right away then can buy

 

hold up it costs 3 credits to reset the city timer? that seems excessive and had me change my vote to C20. i was thinking it was 1 credit and at cities 15-20 they could afford to buy credits on the market to speed things up but at triple the cost that is not reasonable 

[Lolgod2]

increase city timer grace period, make activity center higher profit at lower city counts and gradually go down instead of cutting off at C16, i dont care much about updeclaring I think it only incentivises nuking high score ppl but i don't really care

[Dorothy Latimer]

on first one, i voted no change, but 2x would be fine.  however any change to updeclares should also include a smaller increase to downdeclares.

I also think that instead of just looking at the score war range, the rank war range (you can always declared war on a nation x ranks above or below you) could also be expanded instead. 

No Cap however is a bit too far, unless it was like city 30s and above have no updeclare cap, because otherwise your just gonna end up with a bunch of sub 10s nuking the high tier alliances and raiding half-dead whales with little repercussions, as alot of alliances primarily tiered in high or whale tiers have lower tiers with a lot less experience. 

 

I voted to change the city timer grace period to 20, but I also think that simply reducing the timer to 5 days for everyone & keeping the grace period at 10 or moving to 15 would be better.

 

Edited August 16, 2023 by Cassandra Moore

[Village]

Just now, im317 said:

cant you also declare on nations up to x ranks higher or lower then you?

You can, but only 10. Meaning it's basically useless unless you're in the C50s area trying to declare on someone else is your area. Even if that was expanded to something like 100, it's not guaranteed to fulfill the criteria, it goes from a certain fix to a circumstantial one completely dependent on your own place in the rankings.

[JadenStar10]

increase downdec range but only for me. Thanks.

 Also no city timers.

[im317]

Just now, Village said:

You can, but only 10. Meaning it's basically useless unless you're in the C50s area trying to declare on someone else is your area. Even if that was expanded to something like 100, it's not guaranteed to fulfill the criteria, it goes from a certain fix to a circumstantial one completely dependent on your own place in the rankings.

231 nations can hit the current top nation. exactly how far of an up declare do we really want? you can get to that range with 33+ cities if you actually bother to have military and some infra. even the smallest % increase in the poll gets us very close to having 1000 nations that can hit them. at 250% it actually gets to where the nation with the most cities could hit them with 0 infra and 0 military just due to city and project score. 2.5x should be the largest increase i this poll not the smallest 

[Village]

Just now, im317 said:

231 nations can hit the current top nation. exactly how far of an up declare do we really want? you can get to that range with 33+ cities if you actually bother to have military and some infra. even the smallest % increase in the poll gets us very close to having 1000 nations that can hit them. at 250% it actually gets to where the nation with the most cities could hit them with 0 infra and 0 military just due to city and project score. 2.5x should be the largest increase i this poll not the smallest 

I should've included a 2x and 2.25x option yeah, that's my bad. The goal isn't to reach a set number of nations able to declare, but to eliminate situations where the nation cannot reasonably be hit.

[Danzek]

Just now, im317 said:

231 nations can hit the current top nation. exactly how far of an up declare do we really want? you can get to that range with 33+ cities if you actually bother to have military and some infra. even the smallest % increase in the poll gets us very close to having 1000 nations that can hit them. at 250% it actually gets to where the nation with the most cities could hit them with 0 infra and 0 military just due to city and project score. 2.5x should be the largest increase i this poll not the smallest 

I know you enjoy your farming,

but for actual context, there are 0 florida nations in range of the largest nation in the game, and only 1 florida nation in range of your nation. 
Which is fenris: https://politicsandwar.com/nation/id=47239

Florida: Rose,Guardian,Singularity,Dark Brotherhood,Arkham Asylum,The Golden Horde,Oblivion

It's a problem in war because the losing side loses their infra and units. Having to rebuy infra/military just to missile spam is costly. 

 

Edited August 16, 2023 by Borg

[im317]

oh i understand the reasoning thought its kind of pointless with the current inability to really rebuild and make a comeback in the top tiers. that said its kind of disingenuous to pick alliances that are in the tail end of a fairly long war and say they cant hit one of the top nations in the game who has not been involved in the war for your example. someone like Legion of Dawn would be a much fairer comparison as they have not been fighting and have a small number of nations that can hit me despite half military compared to my almost max military.

also if the change was made to 2.75x the number would jump dramatically. oh and military is a massive score inflation to the point that you have to get to the 37th highest city count nation to find the #2 nation by score. even with cities back at 100 im not sure there a large enough % of a nations score.

Edited August 16, 2023 by im317

[kbommer]

3 hours ago, im317 said:

cant you also declare on nations up to x ranks higher or lower then you? voted no change and 15 cities. if someone can buy cities 11-15 and still have money to buy cities 16-20 right away then can buy

 

hold up it costs 3 credits to reset the city timer? that seems excessive and had me change my vote to C20. i was thinking it was 1 credit and at cities 15-20 they could afford to buy credits on the market to speed things up but at triple the cost that is not reasonable 

Yeah, I agree. IMHO if it costed 1 credit it could be completely fine to start city timer at c15, maybe even c10, but if it's 3 credits it shouldn't apply nowhere near c20. 

 

It would be nicer if it went sth like this:

1-15 cities: no timer

16-20 cities: 5 days/1 credit

21-25 cities: 10 days/2 credits

26+ cities: 15 days/3 credits

3 hours ago, Lolgod2 said:

increase city timer grace period, make activity center higher profit at lower city counts and gradually go down instead of cutting off at C16, i dont care much about updeclaring I think it only incentivises nuking high score ppl but i don't really care

Already new nations rely in huge part on passive income: first 60 days it's 4 mln/day from daily login + 1 mln/day from AC. On the other hand raiding revenues were cut by ~40% for most people, and everyone can see that raiding activity decreased significantly, I literally remember all nations who used to beige sniping pre-GW28 after inactive purge, and now there's literally only 2 other players than me, and I don't even beige snipe this much now because real life became busier.

 

New project was supposed to improve situation (Advanced Pirate Economy), but it costs >200 mln and offers +5% loot from GA, +10% beige loot and 7th offensive slot. Additional offensive slot is some +2 mln/day (it's already almost never possible to keep 6 good targets, and it's impossible to keep cycling 6 good targets at all times; additional slot only gives some weak 5-7 mln worth target), +5% GA loot for c3 with no tanks is up to 400k/day and up to ~1 mln/day with tanks, but most likely it's somewhere between 50-75% of these value (200-750k/day) and +10% loot from beige is some additional 1-2 mln/day based on how good targets are.

 

This adds to up to additional ~3-4,5 mln/day depending on how good targets are used, so it's 45-70 days ROI, and since you need 100 wars finished it takes minimum 40-45 days if you raid anything with 0 MAPs lost, which leads to low avg daily earnings which is worse compared to raiding with beige sniping which would require 50-55 days. Since most players raid either ~1-1,5 billions and quit raiding and some raid until 3-4,5 billions, it means you would have troubles to manage to break even on APE before quitting raiding.

[RobinHood]

With no cap, what stops alliances with small nations (c1-5) not just perma declaring on the top boys just to keep them in constant war and making their upkeeps higher and just nuking for lols.

As it’s easy to afford a nuke while raiding, just keep 1 slot free while sitting on a c40-50. There alliances with loads of these nations. Easy hostage gameplay for fun

[Pascal]

I've already had a hard time with t$ and rose nations doing 20 cities updeclares on c50s, please I don't want to deal with c10s or c5s doing 40-45 cities updeclares I beg you village

Edited August 16, 2023 by Pascal

[Lord Tyrion]

The main issue IMO with no timer to city 20 is that the largest/wealthiest alliances will be the ones who can more afford to boost their members, and the mid-tier and lower alliances will not be able to do so (at least as quickly). So that will create a greater divide at the top, and I think it's healthy for the game to have new challengers and new alliances emerge. But I don't know how the little guy will compete if the big boys can boost their members so freely, it's already hard enough for them. 

Edited August 16, 2023 by Lord Tyrion

[Shore the Evil]

Time for the whales to come out and play.

[Exalts]

I'd love to say that removing city timers up to c20 is a good thing, but the realist in me knows better.

This would lead to players being held at low city counts to raid until they can build up to city 20 all at once, which is not ideal for player retention.

 

It's probably a good thing, but I'm not sure whether the drawbacks outweigh the benefits.

[Sam Cooper]

Village are you going to consider the fact that there are more people in favour of increasing the range than against it? but the way this poll is posted there won't be any change because the votes in favour are scattered between 4 different options while votes against any change are consolidated into one option. And why is "no cap" even an option when it is so impractical that you cannot implement it even if it somehow wins the poll?

[Mars]

please join a good alliance for a month see what this pnw game is even about.

also, can anyone name one incremental change thats been done to this game? i mean a change that is not double, halve or remove?

kind regards

Edited August 16, 2023 by Mars

[im317]

30 minutes ago, Sam Cooper said:

Village are you going to consider the fact that there are more people in favour of increasing the range than against it? but the way this poll is posted there won't be any change because the votes in favour are scattered between 4 different options while votes against any change are consolidated into one option. And why is "no cap" even an option when it is so impractical that you cannot implement it even if it somehow wins the poll?

if it were up to me i would do another poll with

 

no change

2x

2.25x

2.5x

 

and maybe even another poll with less options after that

[Malakai]

@VillageHave you considered making it so that a nation at war experiences a boost in moral or patriotism and gets a military production boost? Think of the rallying of the entire nation behind one cause after Pearl Harbor; women filled the roles of men to produce tanks, bombs, etc. for the men on the frontlines; not to mention the expansion of the workforce after the war ended. So what if a nation in a defensive war gets to enlist/build +X% more military units than they would in a normal build up process. You could take it a step further to increase the bonus X% for every defensive war they are engaged in.

Love seeing the new content train moving a bit; hope this helps.

Edited August 16, 2023 by Malakai

[Mexifornia]

I voted for 2x on updeclare, however I feel a smaller increase should happen for downdeclares, if you can declare on stronger targets, then to an extent, larger nations should be able to down declare slightly more. For the city timer I think C15 is a perfect spot, anymore and I feel that the catering to smaller nations is too great. 

 

I love the idea of helping newer, smaller nations, however don't forget the higher tiers. 

 

Great work Village. Thanks for your support and dedication to PnW. 

Edited August 16, 2023 by Mexifornia

[Alex]

18 hours ago, im317 said:

cant you also declare on nations up to x ranks higher then you?

Yes, that is correct - you can always declare war on the next 10 nations above you in rank. (It does not go the other way; i.e. you cannot always declare on the 10 nations ranked below you in score.)

[Lord Tyrion]

If you are seriously going to consider changing the updeclare range then you need to re-look at multiple other factors, such as nation scores to begin with and the potency of nukes/missiles. Recently I couldn't even get in range to downdeclare a counter on a person 5 cities above me that had almost no infra and max mil. That is a problem. But the bigger problem with expanding your updeclare range is people with very little investment (low infra/military) can more easily nuke people who have expensive infra cities. And the whales can't downdeclare and counter or cycle these people. So if you want to expand the updeclare range, then you need to re-look at what nukes and missiles can do. I would suggest if you have all three of GS, AS and Blockade on someone that their nation is effectively occupied and they can't launch any further nukes/missiles (at least do it for defensive wars only then). You need to prevent a mechanism where low cost pirates just nuke destroy expensive stuff of others when they are defeated militarily and this would only make it easier.

[Village]

6 hours ago, Sam Cooper said:

Village are you going to consider the fact that there are more people in favour of increasing the range than against it? but the way this poll is posted there won't be any change because the votes in favour are scattered between 4 different options while votes against any change are consolidated into one option. And why is "no cap" even an option when it is so impractical that you cannot implement it even if it somehow wins the poll?

I am yeah, should probably have mentioned it in the post (I'll be sure to do so in the future), but my plan was to tally up the votes for change and the votes against change, if a change is voted for then pick the change that had the most votes as the one to move forward with. If anyone has other good ideas for the future then please let me know.  As well, I mostly added no cap for posterity across the various suggestions I've seen for it, although in hindsight I probably shouldn't have included it.

5 hours ago, im317 said:

if it were up to me i would do another poll with

 

no change

2x

2.25x

2.5x

 

and maybe even another poll with less options after that

We might end up doing that, I'm not sure yet and that's going to depend on the outcome of this poll first.

3 hours ago, Malakai said:

@VillageHave you considered making it so that a nation at war experiences a boost in moral or patriotism and gets a military production boost? Think of the rallying of the entire nation behind one cause after Pearl Harbor; women filled the roles of men to produce tanks, bombs, etc. for the men on the frontlines; not to mention the expansion of the workforce after the war ended. So what if a nation in a defensive war gets to enlist/build +X% more military units than they would in a normal build up process. You could take it a step further to increase the bonus X% for every defensive war they are engaged in.

 

I haven't no, but it sounds like an interesting idea. Would you be able to make a post in the game suggestions forum so folks can comment on it if they wish and it doesn't get lost?

23 minutes ago, Lord Tyrion said:

If you are seriously going to consider changing the updeclare range then you need to re-look at multiple other factors, such as nation scores to begin with and the potency of nukes/missiles. Recently I couldn't even get in range to downdeclare a counter on a person 5 cities above me that had almost no infra and max mil. That is a problem. But the bigger problem with expanding your updeclare range is people with very little investment (low infra/military) can more easily nuke people who have expensive infra cities. And the whales can't downdeclare and counter or cycle these people. So if you want to expand the updeclare range, then you need to re-look at what nukes and missiles can do. I would suggest if you have all three of GS, AS and Blockade on someone that their nation is effectively occupied and they can't launch any further nukes/missiles (at least do it for defensive wars only then). You need to prevent a mechanism where low cost pirates just nuke destroy expensive stuff of others when they are defeated militarily and this would only make it easier.

That's a fair point, in particular for the score section I know we'd like to do a score rework at some point (I don't have a timeline on that though sadly), as for re-evaluating nukes and missiles, personally I'm not so sure on that one, I definitely see what you mean about harpooning up as a low tier pirate though.

[Vice]

I’ve always wondered if there was anything left for the dev team to do that could annoy their longest playing and most loyal player base. Surely there was nothing left  but here I stand surprised! 
 

As an avid updeclaring enthusiast, with a 21 updeclare on the Hollywood retaliation war (c20s on a c40s) and usually not a single war goes by without me doing at least 15+ cities, I still find this change useless. Slots for larger nations are already impossible to find once wars break out. the enemy  group of nations we can fight are tiny leaving us only defensive boring ass type wars making use of vds while we ground roll with no tanks or ammo.  Spend more time actually implementing ideas you have then continuing to find new ones that you will only implement 10% of.