Game Development Discussion: Project & Commerce Update Proposal

[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?

[Uriah 'the Fox']

On 1/16/2024 at 3:30 AM, Dryad said:

> 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.

I think the 25% is fair as the Spy Sat itself gives a 50% increase in damage dealt and both are projects with prerequisites and a bit of a price tag. Surveillance network was a bit underwhelming for the cost when it got released imo, not terrible but not great. In an alliance war that 10% chance of catching someone is not that useful to me whereas a 25% reduction in how much stuff I lose is.

[CaptainPenguin]

On 1/19/2024 at 10:15 AM, 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. 

I made the calculations above: 

if you don’t have the ITC project it will take one more slot to get 100% commerce

On 1/16/2024 at 7:56 PM, CaptainPenguin said:

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. 

Small nations are already very limited on the projects that they can have. We need to implement a system that at least keeps the slots the same. If we keep the stadiums the same at 12%, and reduce the banks to maximum of 5 per city. That would keep the slots the same if you don’t have a project and actually make it more slot efficient if you do. 

Edited January 21 by CaptainPenguin

[MonkeyDLegend]

On 1/16/2024 at 7:26 AM, 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 would disagree here, It only hinders the growth of bad alliances and noobs. I bought two of those projects after 60days of raiding with 2cities. 
They might seem expensive but that also makes it worth saving up for them. 

I also bought 7 other projects after only 60 days of raiding.

They are quite cheap if you get the proper guidance in-game.

Edited January 23 by MonkeyDLegend
Adding pic

[Keegoz]

On 1/23/2024 at 1:20 PM, MonkeyDLegend said:

I would disagree here, It only hinders the growth of bad alliances and noobs. I bought two of those projects after 60days of raiding with 2cities. 
They might seem expensive but that also makes it worth saving up for them. 

I also bought 7 other projects after only 60 days of raiding.

They are quite cheap if you get the proper guidance in-game.

People should be able to play with whatever game style they wish. Forcing raiding is one thing that has likely led to less retention rates.

[Rageproject]

On 1/23/2024 at 12:20 AM, MonkeyDLegend said:

I would disagree here, It only hinders the growth of bad alliances and noobs. I bought two of those projects after 60days of raiding with 2cities. 
They might seem expensive but that also makes it worth saving up for them. 

I also bought 7 other projects after only 60 days of raiding.

They are quite cheap if you get the proper guidance in-game.

To Keegoz’s point - people pick different paths and strategy. I don’t think the price of the city projects is too high — under normal market conditions. But some of the adjustments proposed do balance that inflation cost, which is something I think any reasonable player should support. Less reliance on food, for example, to those city projects (which accounted for about 40-50% of the project cost) is a much needed change. 

Edited January 25 by Rageproject

[Ayayay]

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

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.

i suggested this a while ago (but in regards to AUP at c15-16) however the activity center should disable after the city cost project is purchasable (so after c21) it currently creates a weird incentive where players sit on manifest destiny for 5 days, then buy c16(or c21 now) and then immediately buy the city cost project at the same time. I suppose the costs are negligible and you are arguably losing the income of a city which is worth more. However AC is guaranteed income so if a war breaks out you have that no matter what and so it's just safer to not take the risk unless there is a global nap and you know you're safe.

[whiskerz]

It would be nice if we could get an extra offensive spy op with one of the spy projects. I get to get hit with 3 but can only counter with 2 as it sits today 

[im317]

i forgot about this. i guess this is why raw prices have gone up so much? i still think there is a lack of total raw both overall and more importantly actively moved on the market. plus a huge glut of cash, credits quietly went up in 20% in base trade in value in November(?). we had the month with 1 credit for $270m, plus the pay to win Super Contributor 2023 which added an extra $159b the last 2 months of last year. all of that has combined to push raw prices and overall inflation very high. maybe when this actually is added and people make the purchases prices will cool down but im highly skeptical.

[MBaku]

On 1/16/2024 at 9:27 AM, 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. 

I don’t know if “thrill” is the right word 

[Adam II]

I support this but 
a) surely nations that bought planning projects within the last few months should be able to refund them and buy it again
b) this is the perfect time to announce the c26 planning project

[MBaku]

On 1/19/2024 at 4:48 PM, Keegoz said:

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?

but rn you only need 1 subway, 3 stadiums, 4 malls, and 4 banks for 12 slots to go 100. so it's harder for smaller nations to do commerce. and bigger nations are more likely to be able to spend the $120m on specialized police or ITC/Telesat. Not sure how this commerce change helps little nations. I agree with SRD, having 3% supermarkets punishes nations trying to max commerce at 125, nerfing stadiums hurts smaller nations. Passive commerce in projects hurts smaller nations. 

[MBaku]

On 1/15/2024 at 10:26 PM, 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 think the solution is to give it 4% passive, that's a massive change and would make it required. I think the solution is to change the crime calculation so you need two police stations above 2k infra. Along with that, you could make the population hit for crime % less severe so it's not as punishing when crime is present. That would make SPT a viable benefit much earlier and not make it a required project which would hurt smaller nations. 

[Darsh]

When is it coming live

 

[CaptainPenguin]

Are these changes going to happen or are we back to 0?

[Village]

23 hours ago, CaptainPenguin said:

Are these changes going to happen or are we back to 0?

They're coming very soon, stay tuned!