Diminishing returns on military units per building

[Raphael]

Since the war range and downdeclares have become so impossible to balance, the time has come breath new life into PnW's war system.

 

Rather than each barracks adding a flat amount of soldiers, give it a tiny diminishing return curve. So instead of a c40 having 40 cities worth of soldiers, they'd have only 30. A c41 would have 30.25 cities worth of soldiers. etc. These are not finalized numbers, but just an example of what I mean.

 

This way, larger nations are still receiving additional units and not being punished for growing - like some would argue the now pseudo-limitless updeclare range does. Rather, it just levels the playing field for the 90% of the playerbase that isn't above c35.

 

We have to eventually recognize that asking players to invest 1-2 irl years just to be considered in a relevant tier isn't a good game design and will force ever-higher attrition rates as a result. I think this would also refresh politics again, as most alliances do not have an uppermost tier but this change would allow them to compete again.

 

 

edit: For clarification, this is proposing we choose a city count to be an equilibrium point where anything above that point gives diminished military capacity. So, for example, if we pick c30: Anything at or below c30 would remain unchanged in terms of game mechanics. Every city above c30 would give fewer units per building lessening with each additional city. So c31 with max barracks would only give 95% of the troops it normally would. c32 would give 90%. Etc.

Edited February 17 by Raphael

[KindaEpicMoah]

I agree with the general idea behind the suggestion, but I'm not sure what you specifically offer is the best way of going about it.

 

Additionally, the army value changes already did this to some degree, though those operate on a percentile basis rather than a change to the total numbers.

[darkblade]

1 hour ago, Raphael said:

Since the war range and downdeclares have become so impossible to balance, the time has come breath new life into PnW's war system.

 

Rather than each barracks adding a flat amount of soldiers, give it a tiny diminishing return curve. So instead of a c40 having 40 cities worth of soldiers, they'd have only 30. A c41 would have 30.25 cities worth of soldiers. etc. These are not finalized numbers, but just an example of what I mean.

This way, larger nations are still receiving additional units and not being punished for growing - like some would argue the now pseudo-limitless updeclare range does. Rather, it just levels the playing field for the 90% of the playerbase that isn't above c35.

Before I start, yes, this just an example of how the changes would work. But the reason you buy cities is for military reasons because the ROI on cities increases the most exponentially meaning they're worthless for economic reasons. If this change were to be implemented, it would ruin the purpose of buying cities past city 30 since you're essentially throwing money away for essentially nothing. The meta will end up changing to where everyone buys up to c30 and stay there. This essentially kills the late game for most of the upper tier nations. Only thing you could do to grow your nation is buy land and make more food. This will end up crashing the food market since everyone will be making food and force a lot of nations to switch to other resources. The other problem would be is that land increases exponentially as well, meaning there will be a point where even land is useless to buy especially if food is not worth making in this hypothetical scenario.

1 hour ago, Raphael said:

We have to eventually recognize that asking players to invest 1-2 irl years just to be considered in a relevant tier isn't a good game design and will force ever-higher attrition rates as a result. I think this would also refresh politics again, as most alliances do not have an uppermost tier but this change would allow them to compete again.

 While that may be the case for now. Do consider that there have been efforts to speed up the growth process for newer nations. And that some of those efforts are finally seeing fruition. We have Activity center to help new players grow. You can jump straight to city 20 at any given moment as a new player. We'll soon see a massive price cut for UP, AUP, and MP. It is becoming easier for new players to catch up with the rest of the game than it was 3 years ago when I started playing. Once the project update hits the main server, I bet that any player being trained by a decent alliance can catch up to where the mid tier is now. And I hope more changes will be put into effect so we can see people go from c1 to c30 in the span of a year no matter their alliance.

Edited February 17 by darkblade

[MBaku]

I don’t know what’s so impossible about balancing war decs. They reduced city score, inflated infra score, and then are surprised that downdecs are easier. The three score variables aren’t that tough to balance. 
 

Generals are supposedly coming out to provide some disparity in military power for active fighters and trait boosts. 
 

The limitless updeclare range is stupid. It just shifted the meta further towards nuke turreting. If it was supposed to make it easier to consolidate the low tier and climb up in conventional warfare, there are other things that would have to be added to make that a viable meta. 

 

[Shiho Nishizumi]

9 minutes ago, MBaku said:

The limitless updeclare range is stupid. It just shifted the meta further towards nuke turreting. If it was supposed to make it easier to consolidate the low tier and climb up in conventional warfare, there are other things that would have to be added to make that a viable meta. 

 

It was proposed and pushed explicitly to make turreting easier, if I recall Keegoz correctly.

[Mima]

sounds good to me

[Jesus Prime]

Idk take the recruited soldiers or units directly out of cities population to make post war buildup even harder. Additionally make population growth a over time thing instead of immediate when buying infra/land. 

[Keegoz]

6 hours ago, Shiho Nishizumi said:

It was proposed and pushed explicitly to make turreting easier, if I recall Keegoz correctly.

It was designed to ensure whales could not hide during wars as effectively. Nukes aren't that effective against whales anyway.

[Sketchy]

Maybe if it was like, 1-5% less military per city, that might accomplish what you want.

This is suggestion however..is …silly. You are removing the entire economic incentive of the game.

The ROI on cities past 30 is basically non-existent. The only reason to buy more cities past city 30 is for military purposes. Completely eliminating the military gains from cities above 30, completely eliminates any incentive to buy cities past 30. Because what use is more money, if you have nothing to spend it on, because new cities only give you more money.

It completely destroys the entire gameplay loop. You might as well just set everyone to c30 and give them all unlimited resources, that's basically what you are proposing with this change.

[MBaku]

On 2/17/2024 at 9:34 AM, Shiho Nishizumi said:

It was proposed and pushed explicitly to make turreting easier, if I recall Keegoz correctly.

Was finding a high infra nation and clicking the nuke button too hard? Smh, it’s just a poor philosophy imo, we should have ways to fight back conventionally. 

[Shiho Nishizumi]

On 2/17/2024 at 9:34 PM, Keegoz said:

It was designed to ensure whales could not hide during wars as effectively. Nukes aren't that effective against whales anyway.

Perhaps I phrased it poorly, but yes. For people who actually tried to nuke them (by building up), it's been made easier. For those who didn't, it was made possible.

I have to question the point of the change, if nuking them doesn't have that much of an effect on them anyways (a premise I disagree with).

[Keegoz]

On 2/19/2024 at 11:11 PM, Shiho Nishizumi said:

Perhaps I phrased it poorly, but yes. For people who actually tried to nuke them (by building up), it's been made easier. For those who didn't, it was made possible.

I have to question the point of the change, if nuking them doesn't have that much of an effect on them anyways (a premise I disagree with).

Probably worth noting that the second premise is my opinion. Not the one that was the prevailing opinion when the change was made back then under Village.

Nukes only damage one city. So they are more effective on smaller nations than larger ones. E.g. you nuke someone with 5 cities you have nuked 20% of their income whether a c10 is 10%.

They will therefore become less effective over time as the average city of active players increases.

[Shiho Nishizumi]

2 hours ago, Keegoz said:

Probably worth noting that the second premise is my opinion. Not the one that was the prevailing opinion when the change was made back then under Village.

Nukes only damage one city. So they are more effective on smaller nations than larger ones. E.g. you nuke someone with 5 cities you have nuked 20% of their income whether a c10 is 10%.

They will therefore become less effective over time as the average city of active players increases.

Although it's true that smaller nations get affected more on relative terms due to city count, that's not the logic by which nukes are used. The logic for their usage is maximum damage inflicted, and larger nations tend to make for better targets due to taller infra. Nobody's going to nuke a 2250 infra C23 nations when (and if) they can nuke a C45 nation with 2800 infra.

Disproportionate impact on smaller city count nations is also a thing with all attack types. A ground attack launched on a C20 affects 5% of his cities. A ground attack launched on a C40 affects 2.5% of his cities. I'm not entirely sure why would nukes be singled out, their peculiarity of just deleting a city down to sub-1000 infra put aside.

[Sweeeeet Ronny D]

Darkblade gets it,

So I will just say basically what he said.  The only reason to buy cities at our size is military.  We were joking in grumpy just a few days ago that the ROI on city 50 is something like 10-11 years. 

Little nations have so many advantages today that building to the 20s for someone who is seriously playing this game can take about 3 months.  3 MONTHS!  i remember as one of the fastest growing day 1 nations in the game, it took me 1000 days to hit city 25.  it then took me almost another 2500 days to hit c50.