Game Development Discussion: Project & Commerce Update Proposal

[Keegoz]

Project & Commerce Update Proposal

 

Been a long time coming, the design team is looking to update projects and alter commerce as a new economics update for the game. This is a rather large proposal, so please bear with me. For those who don’t like to read much I will quickly now dot point the reason for this proposal:

• Have prices and effects closer to their actual value
• Buff the weaker/overpriced/useless projects
• Bring the pricing of the old original projects closer in line with the new ones
• Reduce the cost of city planning projects to prevent stalling smaller nations growth leading to lower retention rates
• Shift costs more towards raws, which need more sinks and away from manus that don't + to make costings more consistent across the board
• Buff profit per slot for commerce to allow smaller nations with less infrastructure to viably go above 100% commerce

The proposal is far too big to fit into one thread. A large number of projects have merely had their costs changed to make them more consistent across the board or more evenly spread out which resources are required. I will be detailing some of the more major changes in this thread however. To see the full proposal please go to: 
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Z3Ye0oAtHWoYOfHQn1AGYmg80jsPl4fKLK3FPtSeFao/edit?usp=sharing 

Resource Production Projects
(Arms Stockpile, Bauxiteworks, Emergency Gasoline Reserve, Ironworks)

The cost of these projects will be increasing, currently their price is incredibly cheap, largely because they are some of the earliest projects in the game. They are however some of the most profitable. Their cost has also been made to be more equal overall, that is, each project is worth roughly the same amount.

Arms stockpile no longer use more lead than a nation can produce, so nations can be self-sufficient, but also receive a slight nerf to production.

Changes to other Economic Projects
(Bureau of Domestic Affairs, Fallout Shelter, Military Salvage)

Feedback on these projects has been that they aren’t realistic on ROI or usefulness. 

• Bureau of Domestic Affairs has had an additional perk given to it. Specifically ‘adds a +25% effect modifier to your chosen Domestic Policy’. 
• Fallout Shelter has been tweaked to ‘reduces the radiation impact on food production by 15%’. This means all radiation will be reduced by 15% rather than protecting 10% of production during high radiation.
• Military Salvage will be renamed to Military Logistics Planning. Its benefit has changed to ‘Military Logistics Planning is a national project that reduces the steel and aluminum of all units by 5% when already at war.’

Spy Project Changes
(Spy Satellite, Surveillance Network)

Spy Satellite now requires an Intelligence Agency to be built. It received a slight increase in cost.

Surveillance Network feedback suggests that this project is very underpowered and not worded very well. So I’ll quickly clarify on what it does before discussing the change. The project adds a modifier to decrease the odds of a spy attack by 10% and increase the chance of the enemy spy to be caught by 10%.

E.g. If a spy attack against you had 40% chance of succeeding normally, it would now only have a 36% chance of succeeding.

Given that this is a fairly insignificant buff, we have added the additional perk ‘It reduces the damages received from successful espionage operations by 25% (excluding missile/nuke).’. Hopefully this change makes it a more worthwhile project.

Activity Center

The activity center was created to replace a new player project. Rather than give raw resources it was changed to give cash. When this was introduced, new player raiding was a lot more profitable than it is today. We have therefore increased the total amount from logging in for new players to $2,000,000 per day. The project has also had its city cap raised from c15 to c20, in line with the pre-existing new player bonuses and where city timers begin. We hope this will continue to allow new players to grow without necessarily needing other nations to support them. Although we do note more work needs to be done around new player experiences.

City Reduction Projects
(Urban Planning, Advanced Urban Planning, Metropolitan Planning)

Alright, this is the one that is always discussed the most and we’re often given a lot of feedback on. I am going to firstly discuss some reasoning again before discussing the changes.

Firstly, the projects are extremely expensive for the relative size of these nations. This often means that these projects become ‘roadblocks’ to progression in this game and given we have a lowering amount of retention rate in the game we need to address this. It’s worth noting that although these projects have been discounted, a lot of other projects that would be bought by these nations have subsequently increased in price.

Secondly, most of these nations are being asked predominantly for resources that they simply would not produce or cannot produce efficiently at the size of the nation it is aimed for. This punishes any new alliances without many established nations. We have therefore tried to reduce some of these resources' cost and move them into other resources they could feasibly produce on their own. We did not remove all of it entirely though as we want to promote use of the market still.

The following roughly brings these costings to be around 3 cities to ROI on. In other words you should be able to actually break even from these projects before being at the city requirement for the next one.

• Urban Planning Costs: Food 250,000, Uranium 12,000, Raw Resources 4,000
• Advanced Urban Planning Costs: Food 500,000, Uranium 24,000, Raw Resources 8,000 
• Metropolitan Planning Costs: Food 750,000, Uranium 36,000, Raw Resources 12,000

Commerce Based Project Changes & Commerce Change
(International Trade Center, Telecommunications Satellite, Specialized Police Training Program)

Finally we have a rebalancing of commerce and commerce projects. The current issue in the game is commerce projects are not very viable for smaller nations with less infrastructure, due to the low profit per slot of supermarkets.

This proposal will seek to change how the existing commerce projects work, and also change the current commerce and slot values for existing commerce improvements..

The two main commerce projects have been modified as such:

• The International Trade Center, in addition to increasing the cap to 115%, will also increase base commerce in each city by 1%, and the cap on Bank improvements from 5 to 6. The price of ITC has been increased.
• The Telecommunications Satellite in addition to increasing the cap to 125%, will also increase the base commerce in each city by 2%, and the cap on Shopping Malls from 4 to 5.

These changes will work in conjunction with an adjustment to the commerce rates on improvements:

• Supermarkets will see an increase from 3% to 4% commerce per improvement, and a reduction in their cap, from 6 to 4.
• Banks will see an increase from 5% to 6% commerce per improvement, with their cap increasing to 6 when you possess an ITC.
• Shopping Malls will see a decrease from 9% to 8% commerce per improvement, with their cap increasing to 5 when you possess a Telecom Sat.
• Stadiums will see a decrease from 12% to 10% commerce per improvement, with no changes to their cap.

Specialized Police Training will receive a buff, making it a minor commerce project. As it stands, Specialized Police Training is a largely ineffective project, only useful at the highest amounts of infra for saving a single slot. The increase in cap on police stations is redundant, as the default cap is already higher than needed to eliminate all crime at even the highest infra levels.

• Instead of increasing the cap on Police Stations, SPT now increases base commerce in all cities by 4%. This will effectively replace a supermarket, saving all players who buy it a slot, rather than just people with extremely high infra levels.

With these combined changes the total improvements needed to achieve 115% commerce is reduced from 17 to 16, and the total improvements needed to achieve 125% commerce is reduced from 19 to 17. SPT further reduces this by a slot.

Additionally, commerce builds fit correctly, with no need to cap at 114% commerce due to the awkward slot usage.

This makes higher levels of commerce far more viable for smaller nations at lower infrastructure levels, and makes projects like ITC and Telecom Satellite more accessible to the mid tier.

Congrats to those of you who read all of that. Please be specific with feedback and suggestions, this took a long time to go through and a lot of the changes are related to one another so keep that in mind.

Edited January 19, 2024 by Keegoz
Military Salvage reverted to original design

[Themonia]

Some really good changes but I don't think the Military Salvage -> Military Logistics Planning change has succeeded to make it a viable project. Militarization is done mostly before war or during beige, and a vast majority of unit losses occur in the short early stages of war. The project doesn't help in either of these cases, and is only useful for the couple or few days that most nations are rebuying planes, tanks, or ships. The project doesn't cost much, but especially with only a 5% buff, I don't think it's enough to become viable for a slot. The percentage either needs to be higher, or its trigger conditions need to be relaxed a bit.

Edited January 16, 2024 by Themonia

[leonissenbaum]

On the sheet detailing project changes, can the old and new total price (with resources being converted to cash) at current (or pre-war) market values be included? It's hard to judge the price changes without knowing what they actually are.

[Keegoz]

3 minutes ago, leonissenbaum said:

On the sheet detailing project changes, can the old and new total price (with resources being converted to cash) at current (or pre-war) market values be included? It's hard to judge the price changes without knowing what they actually are.

I have the current costings, although it is important to note that with the current major war that these are skewing the numbers a bit. I'll update the sheet in a bit.

[Totally Hatebi]

Yo, count me 100% on this! If this means I won’t have to beg my alliance for another 6 months for the food….

[Dream]

1 hour ago, Keegoz said:

Given that this is a fairly insignificant buff, we have added the additional perk ‘It reduces the damages received from successful espionage operations by 25% (excluding missile/nuke).’. Hopefully this change makes it a more progressive worthwhile project.

I believe an additional reduction in espionages costs or upkeep rates of spies might make sense

 

2 hours ago, Keegoz said:

Military Salvage will be renamed to Military Logistics Planning. Its benefit has changed to ‘Military Logistics Planning is a national project that reduces the steel and aluminum of all units by 5% when already at war.’

I think that instead of reducing unit costs, it would be better to decrease consumption rates of units and also increasing the project cost. At the moment it's quite useless for raiders who are mostly raiding with soldiers only. With the increasing amounts of projects, people would be reluctant to buy military projects over economic projects since they are not providing significant advantages during wars. The use of this project in particular is quite circumstantial, even during wars which also limits it's usability. @Themoniaalready stated those reasons do I won't repeat them. 

[Dryad]

Appreciate your work. I'm unfortunately not a big fan of most of the proposal this time around, but I wanted to make sure to mention that I think changes are needed in this game and that I'm thankful that you guys are spending your time working on it. Anyway here is some criticism from me.

I'm not a fan of making every project a must-have.

> Have prices and effects closer to their actual value
> Buff the weaker/overpriced/useless projects

I'm vibing with these incentives mostly, but I think if you have to pick between making a project a bit too cheap vs a bit too expensive you should be picking the latter. Please keep in mind that project slots are abundant for larger nations while smaller nations struggle with it. By making all these projects must-have you still don't allow all nations to actually get them, only the whales are the ones who actually can get all of them. I would encourage you to actually do something about that, project slots don't have to be tied to nation size and maybe shouldn't be. I also think you should think about some game changes that make the designing job easier for you. For example right now every project costs 1 slot, I think it would be better if thats a value that can be set for every project individually. Even if you just code that mechanic in but keep every projects slot-cost at 1 which keeps the status-quo, this will increase the options you have as devs.

Now some feedback on the specific proposals:

> Bureau of Domestic Affairs has had an additional perk given to it. Specifically ‘adds a +25% effect modifier to your chosen Domestic Policy’. 

I think it's already good enough, I love having it. It's maybe a bit of a cosmetical thing atm but timers are annoying and I'm really happy I have it. I think this change just makes it must-have and I'm opposed to it.

> Fallout Shelter has been tweaked to ‘reduces the radiation impact on food production by 15%’. This means all radiation will be reduced by 15% rather than protecting 10% of production during high radiation.

I currently don't have it, I dont want to have to have it. I will definitely get it if this change happens. Radiation never fully disappears so this is just a straight up buff to food production at all times. I'm not sure why you would even consider buffing food production tbh.

> Military Salvage will be renamed to Military Logistics Planning. Its benefit has changed to ‘Military Logistics Planning is a national project that reduces the steel and aluminum of all units by 5% when already at war.’

This project is extremely unpopular at the moment, but I actually enjoy having it a lot. This change makes it a lot worse, I'm not sure if that's meant to be a buff, but I assure you it isn't. There is not a big difference between giving a discount to rebuys vs refunding losses the same percentage, but you have effectively just removed the effect on kills dealt to your opponent. Furthermore be prepared for a moderation headache because people absolutely will be declaring on others, build units and then immediately peace out. I'm opposed to it.

> Surveillance Network change

Honestly, I think it's good enough right now, this just makes it must-have. 25% less damage taken from spyops is ridiculously good. I'm opposed to it.

> commerce changes

I honestly would just remove SPT from the game entirely. The current version only helps people at extremely high infra as you said. I think the new version is better but also honestly it would just become another boring must-have project that simply takes another project slot with no exciting effect.

Telecom sat giving another mall makes it must-have too probably. I don't like the change.

As for the percentages for the individual commerce improvements: Stadiums are still gonna be the thing to get first, then malls second etc. in that regard nothing should change. Supermarkets are currently kind of omittable. They are popular right now, but I remember some times where I was giving people optimal builds that didn't have any supermarkets. I think with this change they are becoming more must-havish, forcing people who could previously just not have them to also get them fully. I'm unsure if the change is helpful or damaging to low infra people. It makes it more easy to fit all the commerce improvements into your build but you now also have to fit all of them into your build. Additionally the high infra people will obviously also get additional improvement slots. I think that needs to be compared more relatively.

 

Everything else I think I'm okay with right now, I havent checked the sheet yet.

[Jeanne]

Some of these idea's I do not agree with ,  these idea's have me feel I will be forced to play the game  forever like the nuclear project change idea , 28 too ,  34 , 26  among others , I don't wanna waste away at the game like it's work cause games are meant to be fun not fee like you are working.

Edited January 16, 2024 by Jeanne

[Vanek26]

When are these being implemented? Seems mostly good across the board.

[Rowald]

The changes to commerce are overall pretty good, the change on police station is a pretty smart way to repurpose a project that didn't seem very useful

I'm just a little concerned with projects, of course the city reduction projects are "roadblocks", that's why growing beyond them is an accomplishment by itself, I think the game focuses too much on new players while not giving enough to do to earlier players (perks seemed like a great idea 😢)

There's also this weird change to munitions lowering from 36% to 20% while other similar projects are unchanged in that aspect, if you want a raw sink you should instead raise the boost so the consumption increases as well (maybe to 50% because that'd be a nice, round number and it could be generalised to gas and steel too)

[Bolby Ballinger]

7 hours ago, Themonia said:

Some really good changes but I don't think the Military Salvage -> Military Logistics Planning change has succeeded to make it a viable project. Militarization is done mostly before war or during beige, and a vast majority of unit losses occur in the short early stages of war. The project doesn't help in either of these cases, and is only useful for the couple or few days that most nations are rebuying planes, tanks, or ships. The project doesn't cost much, but especially with only a 5% buff, I don't think it's enough to become viable for a slot. The percentage either needs to be higher, or its trigger conditions need to be relaxed a bit.

It honestly sounds like more of a "simplifying the math" change than anything else.

[Corvidae]

Summarizing what I said on discord: 

 

1. I'm not sure about the shift to raws for a lot of the projects. Raws are already steadily decreasing in supply and this feels like an odd choice. I'd be interested to hear reasoning (sorry if I missed the reasoning in the OP).

 

2. City Cost Reduction Projects I think should be re-examined to be even less expensive than proposed. The goal is to reward actively growing new nations with faster/cheaper growth, having them be massive projects with big-ticket cost is the opposite of that goal. I'd rather see the "resource sink" aspect of these projects be shifted somewhere else like onto the Spy Satellites or other big-ticket lategame items.

 

3. Military Salvage and Bureau of Domestic Affairs I think are getting over-buffed. Resource sinks are still needed and you're handing out a lot of bonuses instead.

 

4. I genuinely think Spy Satellite is already way too powerful as it is. A coordinated spy effort like we see from Rose and others can often put up more damages than nukes can consistently produce. I was hoping for a nerf but instead it got a buff. I like the idea of something giving an extra spy per day other than the CIA, but not the spy satellite. Maybe shift it over to the surveillance network instead?

[BelgiumFury]

21 minutes ago, Raphael said:

4. I genuinely think Spy Satellite is already way too powerful as it is. A coordinated spy effort like we see from Rose and others can often put up more damages than nukes can consistently produce. I was hoping for a nerf but instead it got a buff. I like the idea of something giving an extra spy per day other than the CIA, but not the spy satellite. Maybe shift it over to the surveillance network instead?

It did not get buffed at all?

 

 

7 hours ago, Dryad said:

> Bureau of Domestic Affairs has had an additional perk given to it. Specifically ‘adds a +25% effect modifier to your chosen Domestic Policy’. 

I think it's already good enough, I love having it. It's maybe a bit of a cosmetical thing atm but timers are annoying and I'm really happy I have it. I think this change just makes it must-have and I'm opposed to it.

I want to note I agree with this personally. Not everything needs to be objectively "good" it can also just be "handy".

[Malachi Vegas]

I personally think that projects should be expensive to keep nations from growing too rapidly. Part of the thrill of the game is playing for several years and making long term plans to get to your desired size. 

[Jeanne]

3 hours ago, Malachi Vegas said:

I personally think that projects should be expensive to keep nations from growing too rapidly. Part of the thrill of the game is playing for several years and making long term plans to get to your desired size. 

Some of us don't have that amount of time and how about getting newer players  cause all  saw was most of those in my old contacts leaving , so raising the cost will affect new player growth . most games last 5-10 if they are lucky , just 2 if it's too demanding like forced to whale on the game.

Being free to play friendly  and other categories friendly.

If the game does not get new players and they say the game feels like work or too demanding the  slow death where veteran fight each other  so the game staff will have to make a  server to see what system to get new players  interests as soon as the old members leave.

Think long term not short term cause if someone enjoy the game and what it brings , they will invite others  and may pay for credits.

[MrBeast6000]

4 hours ago, Malachi Vegas said:

I personally think that projects should be expensive to keep nations from growing too rapidly. Part of the thrill of the game is playing for several years and making long term plans to get to your desired size. 

While I agree that watching your nation slowly grow is part of the core gameplay. The current state of the early game City Planning projects actually hinders the growth of a nation significantly. Trying to get UP as a c11 is gonna take up a big chunk of your first year as a nation due to the cost of it and how much you nation makes at that size. The only way to get around  the hurdle is to either get boosted from your alliance (which most alliances won't do that for a new player), or raid everyday for 1-3 months. And raiding isn't a long term solution for this problem either since Alex wipes out inactive nations once a year. So if you join the game after a nation wipe, then good luck trying to raid. Personally, these project changes should give new players a easier time when growing from the low 10's to the mid 20's.

[Danzek]

Here's some data related to the change.

1. Breakdown of FOOD project expenses (old pricing) (1year)

project    amt    spent    %
ADVANCED_URBAN_PLANNING    995    2,487,500,000.00    60.91%
URBAN_PLANNING    1174    1,174,000,000    28.75%
RECYCLING_INITIATIVE    252    25,200,000    .62%
GREEN_TECHNOLOGIES    203    50,750,000    1.24%
CLINICAL_RESEARCH_CENTER    495    49,500,000    1.21%
SPECIALIZED_POLICE_TRAINING_PROGRAM    119    11,900,000    .29%
RESEARCH_AND_DEVELOPMENT_CENTER    912    91,200,000    2.23%
ACTIVITY_CENTER    6263    6,263,000    .15%
GOVERNMENT_SUPPORT_AGENCY    820    164,000,000    4.02%
FALLOUT_SHELTER    102    10,200,000    .25%
BUREAU_OF_DOMESTIC_AFFAIRS    136    13,600,000    .33%

 

2. Total spent on projects and cities for the previous year

Using old project prices:

{MONEY=479,987,500,000, FOOD=4,084,113,000, COAL=23,560,500, OIL=36,409,000, URANIUM=54,294,500, LEAD=18,510,500, IRON=26,959,000, BAUXITE=17,499,000, GASOLINE=42,327,550, MUNITIONS=46,910,000, STEEL=86,135,625, ALUMINUM=158,377,875}

Worth: $2,995,900,652,425

Using new project prices:

{MONEY=505,949,500,000, FOOD=3,441,013,000, COAL=28,073,000, OIL=29,836,500, URANIUM=24,917,500, LEAD=29,093,000, IRON=32,191,500, BAUXITE=28,081,500, GASOLINE=30,594,000, MUNITIONS=30,088,000, STEEL=7,589,000, ALUMINUM=71,468,000}

Worth: $2,258,877,002,000

Difference:

{MONEY=25,962,000,000, FOOD=-643,100,000, COAL=4,512,500, OIL=-6,572,500, URANIUM=-29,377,000, LEAD=10,582,500, IRON=5,232,500, BAUXITE=10,582,500, GASOLINE=-11,733,550, MUNITIONS=-16,822,000, STEEL=-78,546,625, ALUMINUM=-86,909,875}

Here's a graph using price at different times in the year
blue = old prices
red = new prices

City purchases:

$9,037,247,484,375

 

3. How it may affect project purchases by tiering.

This is from the previous year's project purchases, tracked by city count. Yellow is the value of city purchases by tier.

Note: The price and mechanic changes will change, future project purchases may not be the same

There is an increase to MLP project - which can be considered a noob trap when purchased at city 3. Here is without MLP price changes. Price changes may deter early purchases of missiles. The subsequent spikes are from the city planning projects.

 

4. Expenses by day

Using current market prices:

 

Edited January 17, 2024 by Danzek

[Tuxedo]

I want to focus on the Commerce Based Project Changes & Commerce Changes:

Here is the overview made simple as the explanation is not very clear:

Current

• A nation with no project (max 100% commerce) - 3 X 12% (Stadiums), 4 X 9% (Shopping Mall), 4 X 5% (Banks), 1 X 8% (Subway) = 100% (12 improvement)
• A nation with ITC (max 115% commerce) - 3 X 12% (Stadiums), 4 X 9% (Shopping Mall), 5 X 5% (Banks), 4 X 4% (Supermarkets), 1 X 8% (Subway) = 117% (17 improvements)
• A nation with TS (max 125% commerce) - 3 X 12% (Stadiums), 4 X 9% (Shopping Mall), 5 X 5% (Banks), 6 X 3% (Supermarkets), 1 X 8% (Subway), 2% (TS Project) = 125% (19 improvements)

Proposed

• A nation with no project (max 100% commerce) - 3 X 10% (Stadiums), 4 X 8% (Shopping Mall), 5 X 6% (Banks), 1 X 8% (Subway) = 100% (13 improvements)
• A nation with ITC (max 115% commerce) - 3 X 10% (Stadiums), 4 X 8% (Shopping Mall), 6 X 6% (Banks), 2 X 4% (Supermarkets), 1 X 8% (Subway), 1% (ITC Project) = 115% (16 improvements)
• A nation with TS (max 125% commerce) - 3 X 10% (Stadiums), 5 X 8% (Shopping Mall), 6 X 6% (Banks), 2 X 4% (Supermarkets), 1 X 8% (Subway), 1% (ITC Project), 2% (TS Project) = 125% (17 improvements)
• A nation with TS + SPT (max 125% commerce) - 3 X 10% (Stadiums), 5 X 8% (Shopping Mall), 6 X 6% (Banks), 1 X 4% (Supermarkets), 1 X 8% (Subway), 1% (ITC Project), 2% (TS Project) = 125% (16 improvements)

These improvements are only good if you have the ITC or TS projects, If you don’t You have to use an extra slot to get 100% commerce. This proposal as written will making it harder for new players to grow until they have the ITC project. 
 

Edit: This could be fixed if we keep shopping malls at 9%, but every thing will need to be tweaked. I haven’t found a solution yet. 

Edited January 17, 2024 by CaptainPenguin
Fix

[Jacob Knox]

22 hours ago, Keegoz said:

Resource Production Projects
(Arms Stockpile, Bauxiteworks, Emergency Gasoline Reserve, Ironworks)

The cost of these projects will be increasing, currently their price is incredibly cheap, largely because they are some of the earliest projects in the game. They are however some of the most profitable. Their cost has also been made to be more equal overall, that is, each project is worth roughly the same amount.

Arms stockpile no longer use more lead than a nation can produce, so nations can be self-sufficient, but also receive a slight nerf to production.

So oil still gets converted to gas at a 1:2 ratio, bauxite to aluminum at a 1:3 ratio, and coal and iron to steel at a 1:1.5 ratio, but lead to munitions is getting buffed from 1:3 to 1:3.6? I feel as though there still needs to be some balancing done here, especially because the argument is surrounding self-sufficiency while steel makers can only be self-sufficient if they have 20 slots for iron and coal mines and even then they're faced with the worst conversion rate. (I may be biased because I tend to make steel, but... come on.)

 

22 hours ago, Keegoz said:

Changes to other Economic Projects
(Bureau of Domestic Affairs, Fallout Shelter, Military Salvage)

Feedback on these projects has been that they aren’t realistic on ROI or usefulness. 

• Bureau of Domestic Affairs has had an additional perk given to it. Specifically ‘adds a +25% effect modifier to your chosen Domestic Policy’. 
• Fallout Shelter has been tweaked to ‘reduces the radiation impact on food production by 15%’. This means all radiation will be reduced by 15% rather than protecting 10% of production during high radiation.
• Military Salvage will be renamed to Military Logistics Planning. Its benefit has changed to ‘Military Logistics Planning is a national project that reduces the steel and aluminum of all units by 5% when already at war.’

I'm supportive of these changes, though skeptical of the cost change for Bureau of Domestic Affairs perhaps because it just feels cheaper to me and I don't like that for two reasons: (1) if you're buffing it then I don't think it should be made cheaper and (2) to me, this is more of a later game project. Furthermore, I'm skeptical if Military Logistics Planning would prove to be useful, though I can see use cases for it so I will support it.

 

22 hours ago, Keegoz said:

City Reduction Projects
(Urban Planning, Advanced Urban Planning, Metropolitan Planning)

Alright, this is the one that is always discussed the most and we’re often given a lot of feedback on. I am going to firstly discuss some reasoning again before discussing the changes.

Firstly, the projects are extremely expensive for the relative size of these nations. This often means that these projects become ‘roadblocks’ to progression in this game and given we have a lowering amount of retention rate in the game we need to address this. It’s worth noting that although these projects have been discounted, a lot of other projects that would be bought by these nations have subsequently increased in price.

Secondly, most of these nations are being asked predominantly for resources that they simply would not produce or cannot produce efficiently at the size of the nation it is aimed for. This punishes any new alliances without many established nations. We have therefore tried to reduce some of these resources' cost and move them into other resources they could feasibly produce on their own. We did not remove all of it entirely though as we want to promote use of the market still.

The following roughly brings these costings to be around 3 cities to ROI on. In other words you should be able to actually break even from these projects before being at the city requirement for the next one.

• Urban Planning Costs: Food 250,000, Uranium 12,000, Raw Resources 4,000
• Advanced Urban Planning Costs: Food 500,000, Uranium 24,000, Raw Resources 8,000 
• Metropolitan Planning Costs: Food 750,000, Uranium 36,000, Raw Resources 12,000

I wholeheartedly agree with the points made here and these changes.

 

22 hours ago, Keegoz said:

Specialized Police Training will receive a buff, making it a minor commerce project. As it stands, Specialized Police Training is a largely ineffective project, only useful at the highest amounts of infra for saving a single slot. The increase in cap on police stations is redundant, as the default cap is already higher than needed to eliminate all crime at even the highest infra levels.

• Instead of increasing the cap on Police Stations, SPT now increases base commerce in all cities by 4%. This will effectively replace a supermarket, saving all players who buy it a slot, rather than just people with extremely high infra levels.

I don't know if the project fits its name anymore with this proposed change, but I'm all on board with either scrapping it or repurposing it since it is basically a useless project right now.

 

20 hours ago, Dream said:

I believe an additional reduction in espionages costs or upkeep rates of spies might make sense

Good ideas for a separate project, in my opinion, but that just seems to be layering too much onto one project (especially with the proposed 25% reduction in unit casualties).

 

19 hours ago, Dryad said:

By making all these projects must-have you still don't allow all nations to actually get them, only the whales are the ones who actually can get all of them. I would encourage you to actually do something about that, project slots don't have to be tied to nation size and maybe shouldn't be. I also think you should think about some game changes that make the designing job easier for you.

Absolutely agree with this sentiment, and I was actually thinking about incorporating some thoughts I've been having on the matter in either a reply here or a separate post. I've heard of some game designers setting a baseline and then having everything be based on said baseline (like a percentage off), so perhaps that's something they could experiment with in terms of project cost and benefit. But then you have to somehow quantify different types of benefits into one metric that can be compared and that gets messy.

 

16 hours ago, Rowald said:

I think the game focuses too much on new players while not giving enough to do to earlier players

Sadly that's related to the reality that this game's retention rate is terrible. We need to focus on new players to get them to stay. The majority of new nations are deleted or go inactive within one year (if my information is still up to date).

 

11 hours ago, Raphael said:

4. I genuinely think Spy Satellite is already way too powerful as it is. A coordinated spy effort like we see from Rose and others can often put up more damages than nukes can consistently produce. I was hoping for a nerf but instead it got a buff. I like the idea of something giving an extra spy per day other than the CIA, but not the spy satellite. Maybe shift it over to the surveillance network instead?

Spy Satellite is not getting a buff. It's just having an added prerequisite of Intelligence Agency. Surveillance Network is the project getting buffed.

 

1 hour ago, CaptainPenguin said:

These improvements are only good if you have the ITC or TS projects, If you don’t You have to use an extra slot to get 100% commerce. This proposal as written will making it harder for new players to grow until they have the ITC project. 

An extra slot for people without ITC while people with projects don't have to use 1-3 slots is acceptable in my opinion (it also rewards, even more, getting those projects).

[Keegoz]

21 hours ago, Dryad said:

I'm vibing with these incentives mostly, but I think if you have to pick between making a project a bit too cheap vs a bit too expensive you should be picking the latter. Please keep in mind that project slots are abundant for larger nations while smaller nations struggle with it. By making all these projects must-have you still don't allow all nations to actually get them, only the whales are the ones who actually can get all of them. I would encourage you to actually do something about that, project slots don't have to be tied to nation size and maybe shouldn't be. I also think you should think about some game changes that make the designing job easier for you. For example right now every project costs 1 slot, I think it would be better if thats a value that can be set for every project individually. Even if you just code that mechanic in but keep every projects slot-cost at 1 which keeps the status-quo, this will increase the options you have as devs.

I have agreed that project slots should be changed (have for a while), however I also need to be realistic of where I choose my battles. We have a limited amount of people coding for a limited amount of time. There are a number of changes that I would like to make and I could propose but they may not see the light of day.

Part of the reason why changing projects was the core focus here for an econ update was because a lot of it is already coded, making it easier and more likely to be implemented.

Until Generals is implemented, I won't be looking at any other large coding changes to the game. So although yes, there are many things the game *should* be doing there is only so much it can do. There is also a need to introduce new content vs fixing the issues with the current content (which honestly could probably fill the next 2 years of updates alone).

[Rageproject]

So, I think there is a lot of good in these changes and definitely some things to consider.

Raising the cost of resource production projects is sensible. They were too cheap. The cost change should be negligible in the trade market. However, as pointed out there needs to be a better balance to the manufacturing ratios as the projects all cost the same for different outputs.

Activity Center is way too powerful. I understand trying to boost new and low tier player experience — but they’re making a lot of free money daily even without this change. I don’t see an issue with it being available until c20.

Military Logistics Planning would be better served to just reduce cost by 5% on units regardless of war. And just call it Military Logistics, drop “Planning” as we already have Missile Launch Pad as MLP abbreviation.

The changes to BDA and Fallout Shelter make them a better value — still later project purchases, but better. 

SPT needs to go or be renamed. If it’s now a commerce project, just call it a Stock Market or something.

I support trying to change the City Cost Reduction Projects to a more reasonable, stable value. Simply balancing raws and lessening the food investment makes a difference. I fear they may become too reduced in total cost in normal market conditions, I’d suggest setting ~30% of the project cost in cash and remainder in resources. The project value compounds in perpetuity as more cities are purchased so I’ve never really considered them too expensive relative to the total long term savings.

Changes to ITC and Telcomm Sat are logical. I can even understand and support the commerce changes due to the big picture advantage. Low infra nations shouldn’t be pushing commerce and one slot isn’t a big loss.
 

In regard to the idea of project slots — why not just add an additional Research and Development Center project (name it whatever) to open another +2 slots? Or lower the infra threshold per project slot from 5K to 4K? The project timer is fine and with the proposed cost changes it will change how some approach projects. Making projects more available to nations is an advantage so they can continue investing in growth. 

[Gideon]

Love the changes to the city planning projects, those were just way to expensive for new players to shoulder. Idk about the Telecomm Sat buff though, this is not a project typically used by new players and will just boost the economy of bigger nations, which i don't think is really necessary rn. 

[Keegoz]

Upon community feedback, it is likely we will leave Military Salvage as is for now.

[Sweeeeet Ronny D]

On 1/16/2024 at 1:26 AM, Keegoz said:

Commerce Based Project Changes & Commerce Change
(International Trade Center, Telecommunications Satellite, Specialized Police Training Program)

Finally we have a rebalancing of commerce and commerce projects. The current issue in the game is commerce projects are not very viable for smaller nations with less infrastructure, due to the low profit per slot of supermarkets.

This proposal will seek to change how the existing commerce projects work, and also change the current commerce and slot values for existing commerce improvements..

The two main commerce projects have been modified as such:

• The International Trade Center, in addition to increasing the cap to 115%, will also increase base commerce in each city by 1%, and the cap on Bank improvements from 5 to 6. The price of ITC has been increased.
• The Telecommunications Satellite in addition to increasing the cap to 125%, will also increase the base commerce in each city by 2%, and the cap on Shopping Malls from 4 to 5.

These changes will work in conjunction with an adjustment to the commerce rates on improvements:

• Supermarkets will see an increase from 3% to 4% commerce per improvement, and a reduction in their cap, from 6 to 4.
• Banks will see an increase from 5% to 6% commerce per improvement, with their cap increasing to 6 when you possess an ITC.
• Shopping Malls will see a decrease from 9% to 8% commerce per improvement, with their cap increasing to 5 when you possess a Telecom Sat.
• Stadiums will see a decrease from 12% to 10% commerce per improvement, with no changes to their cap.

wait unless my math is wrong doesn't this make it worse?  you still need 18 improvement slots to max out your income with both projects, except now you need more of the more expensive improvements vs the cheap supermarkets.  since you made shopping malls and stadiums less effective.

I dont understand how this helps newer players with lower infra levels,  wouldnt the best way to help them be to lower the number of improvement slots needed to max commerce?

How are you helping smaller nations by forcing them to buy more supermarkets to get the same amount of commerce as they currently have.

Unless i am missing something, currently a new nation to get to 100% commerce needs 3 Stad, 4 ShopM, 5 B, 1 SM.  Under the new proposal, they will need 3 stad, 4 shop 5 bank, 2 sm.   If anything keeping the supermarket bonus cheap punishes whales and large nations because you are forcing us to use up improvement slots for something that only increases our commerce 3 percent. 

Edited January 19, 2024 by Sweeeeet Ronny D

[Keegoz]

6 hours ago, Sweeeeet Ronny D said:

wait unless my math is wrong doesn't this make it worse?  you still need 18 improvement slots to max out your income with both projects, except now you need more of the more expensive improvements vs the cheap supermarkets.  since you made shopping malls and stadiums less effective.

I dont understand how this helps newer players with lower infra levels,  wouldnt the best way to help them be to lower the number of improvement slots needed to max commerce?

How are you helping smaller nations by forcing them to buy more supermarkets to get the same amount of commerce as they currently have.

Unless i am missing something, currently a new nation to get to 100% commerce needs 3 Stad, 4 ShopM, 5 B, 1 SM.  Under the new proposal, they will need 3 stad, 4 shop 5 bank, 2 sm.   If anything keeping the supermarket bonus cheap punishes whales and large nations because you are forcing us to use up improvement slots for something that only increases our commerce 3 percent. 

To get 100% commerce you need 1 subway, 5 banks, 4 malls, 3 stadiums when you have no projects. 13 slots all up.

Once you get ITC you need 16 slots for 115% (a reduction of 1 from what we currently have) and Telesat makes it 17 slots for 125% (a reduction of 2 slots).

I think you forgot about the subway being a commerce improvement?