Rework Color Bonuses

[Jacob Knox]

Alright, @Alex, it has been a year and a half since this post about removing the bonus cap for color blocs and this is where we are right now:

 

Half of the color blocs are maxed and two of the half that aren't are the gray and beige blocs (leaving six meaningful non-max blocs). Personally, I'm not sure whether I fully agree with removing the cap altogether, but it definitely needs to be reworked in my opinion.

What should the new cap be, then? I'm glad you asked. After doing the math, most of the ones currently maxed would be around $80,000 to $90,000 without a cap, Green would be around $102,000, and White would be the highest at about $189,000. To leave room for growth for most blocs, and to prevent color blocs from theoretically giving insane revenue (though that might be interesting to further drive color bloc related conflicts), I propose doubling the cap to $150,000 per turn (or $1.8 million per day). This also keeps it below the current maximum for the login bonus ($2m) to still value activity greater than simply being on a valuable bloc.

 

Any thoughts or feedback from the community? Do you think getting rid of the cap, increasing the cap, or changing the equation altogether would be most effective and why?

[Jesus Prime]

I don’t know about the color cap, I believe it should probably be something where higher players sit on it to generate a larger bonus for smaller nation to aquire. Otherwise I not sure if a % bonus will work instead like up to 0-2% bonus in revenue?

[Jacob Knox]

10 minutes ago, R.E.P said:

Otherwise I not sure if a % bonus will work instead like up to 0-2% bonus in revenue?

It would definitely have to be higher than 2%. As a c28 with 115% commerce, the current $75,000 per turn is about 3.74% of my tax revenue. I don't support a percentage-based system, though, because it primarily supports whales. Not that I'm opposed to whales having nice things from time to time, but intentionally changing the design of a system that is fair across all city counts to one that primarily benefits whales is a no go for me.

14 minutes ago, R.E.P said:

I believe it should probably be something where higher players sit on it to generate a larger bonus for smaller nation to aquire.

Also, the mechanics would have to be completely reworked to support this. Inherently, the current mechanics discourage larger nations from allowing smaller nations on the most profitable blocs because profit is directly linked to average revenue and number of nations on the bloc.

[Jesus Prime]

7 minutes ago, Jacob Knox said:

Also, the mechanics would have to be completely reworked to support this. Inherently, the current mechanics discourage larger nations from allowing smaller nations on the most profitable blocs because profit is directly linked to average revenue and number of nations on the bloc.

If the mechanics would have to be reworks the change of the money per turn can be linked to total commerce of all nations within the bloc divided by the nations in it times a set number. It would make it so it could also be incorporated with the newer commerce rebalances which makes 100% commerce more accessible for smaller nations.

 

(It could be [Commerce/Nations*$0.50] or smth like that)

[Buorhann]

Why not just tier the color blocs?  Highest has the $75k cap, then the rest fluctuate around that.  Gives more competition on color blocs.

Don't really like the idea of raising the cap.  The game doesn't need more money pumped into it through that.  Unless you want to make the argument that having a higher cap encourages more conflict...  then I can see that.

[Jacob Knox]

15 minutes ago, Buorhann said:

Why not just tier the color blocs?  Highest has the $75k cap, then the rest fluctuate around that.  Gives more competition on color blocs.

Don't really like the idea of raising the cap.  The game doesn't need more money pumped into it through that.  Unless you want to make the argument that having a higher cap encourages more conflict...  then I can see that.

I actually really like this idea, because raising the cap really just gives a little wiggle room before we're in the same situation again. This, though, encourages more competitiveness imo. However, I think the amount of the tiers would need to be considered heavily. Or we could do a system where the bonus is based on the standard deviation of a bloc from the current mean.

[Raphael]

38 minutes ago, Buorhann said:

Why not just tier the color blocs?  Highest has the $75k cap, then the rest fluctuate around that.  Gives more competition on color blocs.

Don't really like the idea of raising the cap.  The game doesn't need more money pumped into it through that.  Unless you want to make the argument that having a higher cap encourages more conflict...  then I can see that.

I like this idea.

 

I would also say that the formula should be completely flipped as right now the conflict caused is big AA's kicking little/new AA's off their sphere.

Make it so that the more nations and lower the average revenue is, the higher the extra income is imo. This way it pushes larger AA's like t$ to invite people to Green rather than push them off.

Competition of a different, more political nature, and it benefits smaller nations more or at least equally to the whales that currently profit most from the formula.

[Alex]

I'm all for increasing it to $150,000.

[Jesus Prime]

@AlexCan you work on a colour tiering system instead and some cooperative  projects?

Edited February 8 by R.E.P

[Sweeeeet Ronny D]

get me more money sheeps!

[Keegoz]

It is on my target list, but honestly it needs a complete re-work as to not make it a mechanic where new nations/alliances are bullied onto the worst colour.

[Alex]

I have just coded in on the test server an increase in the cap to $125,000 and an increase in the Beige bonus from $50,000 -> $85,000 that can go live anytime after at least a couple days of testing on the test server to make sure it works

[Jacob Knox]

22 minutes ago, Alex said:

I have just coded in on the test server an increase in the cap to $125,000 and an increase in the Beige bonus from $50,000 -> $85,000 that can go live anytime after at least a couple days of testing on the test server to make sure it works

Thank you for being relatively quick with this, Alex. ❤️

13 hours ago, Keegoz said:

It is on my target list, but honestly it needs a complete re-work as to not make it a mechanic where new nations/alliances are bullied onto the worst colour.

Now... turning to discussions about an improved system in general. I may or may not have spent quite a bit of time coming up with a stupid equation (that still needs to be tweaked, but can be a starter) that disincentives blocs from having low or high nation count and/or average DNR.

Bonus = -1(x - x bar)^2 - 150((y - y bar) / 1,000,000)^2 + 125,000

where x is number of nations on the bloc, x bar is the average number of nations (sum of all nations on blocs excluding beige and gray divided by number of blocs), y is the bloc's average DNR, and y bar is the average average DNR (sum of all average DNRs of blocs excluding beige and gray divided by number of blocs).

Here's what this equation would look like in practice (and you may see why I say it may need tweaking):

Now... allow me to also explain what changes to the different numbers in the equation will do:

Changing the -1 at the start will change how much blocs are penalized for straying from the average number of nations on either side. It should remain negative, but the larger the negative number, the more steep the penalty. Same goes for the -150, but for variance from the average average DNR. 125,000 is the proposed cap (yes, this model is still capped) and can only truly be achieved if the bloc is exactly average.

[Jesus Prime]

1 hour ago, Jacob Knox said:

Thank you for being relatively quick with this, Alex. ❤️

Now... turning to discussions about an improved system in general. I may or may not have spent quite a bit of time coming up with a stupid equation (that still needs to be tweaked, but can be a starter) that disincentives blocs from having low or high nation count and/or average DNR.

Bonus = -1(x - x bar)^2 - 150((y - y bar) / 1,000,000)^2 + 125,000

where x is number of nations on the bloc, x bar is the average number of nations (sum of all nations on blocs excluding beige and gray divided by number of blocs), y is the bloc's average DNR, and y bar is the average average DNR (sum of all average DNRs of blocs excluding beige and gray divided by number of blocs).

Here's what this equation would look like in practice (and you may see why I say it may need tweaking):

Now... allow me to also explain what changes to the different numbers in the equation will do:

Changing the -1 at the start will change how much blocs are penalized for straying from the average number of nations on either side. It should remain negative, but the larger the negative number, the more steep the penalty. Same goes for the -150, but for variance from the average average DNR. 125,000 is the proposed cap (yes, this model is still capped) and can only truly be achieved if the bloc is exactly average.

I do like the idea however restricting each bloc by the average number of nations will kind of remove some of the competitiveness from the blocs. 
 

Instead I think I tiering system based on how many nations are in the bloc combined with their average DNR. Additionally, the number of players on the block can also have a %revenue bonus so that the whale blocs are encouraged to get as many players onto their bloc through offering bonuses or cooperation with other alliances to provide the biggest bonus together for smaller nations and the whales.

[Krampus]

On 2/6/2024 at 11:29 PM, Buorhann said:

Unless you want to make the argument that having a higher cap encourages more conflict...  then I can see that.

doubt it tbh. 

[Anarchist Empire]

The only benefit I see to this is maybe inspire more conflict, with more alliances resisting being pushed onto the low income colors. (Rich get richer for being dicks to all the newer alliances and nations, maybe more would revolt if the difference is made bigger. This suggestion doesn't make me want to feed into the delusion some have they can control who's on a color.)

I don't believe alliances can control it, so penalizing them more for not doesn't make much sense. If any alliance is upset I'm on green, they should blame the game mechanics for penalizing them. Rather than feeling super entitled. While some might ask polite, most don't bother and just feel elitist; bossing others around. Think last person who asked me suggested purple, see it's the worst color in the game. yeah right. Advice doesn't seem so friendly when told to go to really bad colors, as people are asking a favor. Color mechanic might be more interesting if alliances put their training AAs on the colors of their competitors; rather than conspiring together with all the big alliances to harass all the smaller ones onto really bad colors; where they also force their training alliances to be. The big alliances don't use it in an interesting way.

Edited February 11 by Anarchist Empire

[Alex]

On 2/9/2024 at 2:28 AM, Keegoz said:

It is on my target list, but honestly it needs a complete re-work as to not make it a mechanic where new nations/alliances are bullied onto the worst colour.

IMO it's working exactly as intended. It was designed to give people something to fight over, and people do. Sure, it's not very fun to be on the losing side, but that's true of any mechanic that creates conflict. Or just conflict in general.

[Sweeeeet Ronny D]

On 2/11/2024 at 1:23 AM, Anarchist Empire said:

The only benefit I see to this is maybe inspire more conflict, with more alliances resisting being pushed onto the low income colors. (Rich get richer for being dicks to all the newer alliances and nations, maybe more would revolt if the difference is made bigger. This suggestion doesn't make me want to feed into the delusion some have they can control who's on a color.)

I don't believe alliances can control it, so penalizing them more for not doesn't make much sense. If any alliance is upset I'm on green, they should blame the game mechanics for penalizing them. Rather than feeling super entitled. While some might ask polite, most don't bother and just feel elitist; bossing others around. Think last person who asked me suggested purple, see it's the worst color in the game. yeah right. Advice doesn't seem so friendly when told to go to really bad colors, as people are asking a favor. Color mechanic might be more interesting if alliances put their training AAs on the colors of their competitors; rather than conspiring together with all the big alliances to harass all the smaller ones onto really bad colors; where they also force their training alliances to be. The big alliances don't use it in an interesting way.

You say elitist, I say you are a freeloader. 

You are here making bank off the hard work of the large nations that sit on green put in to become large nations.  I am guessing you probably dont get bothered much about it now, but if the value gets increased, and we arent at max, you can believe that there will be some work put in by the alliances on each color to maximize their income.

Yes you 100 percent can control who is on a color, the only thing stopping alliances, is how much effort they want to put in, and how stubborn the nations that dont want to leave are.

[Juuzou]

On 2/10/2024 at 3:50 AM, Alex said:

I have just coded in on the test server an increase in the cap to $125,000 and an increase in the Beige bonus from $50,000 -> $85,000 that can go live anytime after at least a couple days of testing on the test server to make sure it works

Any update on this?

[Jacob Knox]

8 hours ago, juuzou said:

Any update on this?

It appears to be fully functional on the test server now. Likely just been monitoring it a little, but it seems good to go now.