New Projects, Project Rebalancing, Revenue Rewrite, and Espionage Rewrite - March 2024 Update

[Village]

Hey everyone, this month brought a lot of changes in the Politics and War development space, for starters I’ve come back to work on the game again, having gotten school under control. More importantly though, we now have a development team, with @Putmir Vladin and @Unlimited joining the team as Community Developers! Thanks to their amazing help, I’m excited to announce that we’re finally able to deliver monthly updates, with this post being the culmination of all the work we’ve been able to do in March after completing onboarding!

Updates

Espionage Rewrite

Two things were missing when I completed the wars rewrite last summer, an espionage rewrite and a battle simulator rewrite. This month, espionage has been completely rewritten and next month we’re tackling the battle simulator!

No mechanical changes to espionage were done as part of this rewrite, however the project changes below will have some effect.

New Projects

Two new projects have been added to the game, Guiding Satellite and Nuclear Launch Facility! More information about them can be found in the Game Development Discussion post here https://forum.politicsandwar.com/index.php?/topic/36867-game-development-discussion-update-feedback/.

Note: We are aware of the lack of project pictures, Alex has been very busy and we’re waiting for him to get images, personally I’d rather have new projects without pictures than delay content for an image.

Revenue Rewrite

To improve performance and development productivity, we’ve also redone the revenue backend and frontend this month!

However, we need your help! Revenue is a very large segment of code, and it’s edge cases are not easily tested on the test server like when working with wars. To that end, the new revenue page is being deployed live now, however the code running and turn change has not changed. We kindly ask that you take a look at your new revenue page (https://politicsandwar.com/nation/revenue) and the old revenue page (made available temporarily here https://politicsandwar.com/index.php?id=230) and open a ticket on the PnW Discord server with pictures of both if you notice any differences that amount to a difference of more than $10. There will be small changes in money and food due to some rounding optimizations.

Once we’ve verified that the new system is correctly calculating revenue, we will release the new backend (which should significantly improve turn and day change times!).

Project Updates

A number of projects got new pricing or were rebalanced, the entire list can be found in the forum post here https://forum.politicsandwar.com/index.php?/topic/36611-game-development-discussion-project-commerce-update-proposal/. Of note however is that for the moment only the mechanical changes to Activity Center, Spy Satellite, and Surveillance Network are available on the live server. Since the remaining projects effect revenue, we are delaying there release until we have verified the new revenue backend functions correctly. Expect these to be released in a week or two once we’ve worked out any kinks in the new system!

Map Calibrator Disabled

I have disabled the automatic MAP calibrator on war pages, this seems to be the culprit of the insane quantities of deadlock errors encountered during the opening round of globals. If you notice any discrepancies with your MAPs or any other aspect of wars please open a ticket on the PnW Discord server so I can look into why.

Color Bloc Bonus Increase

The color bloc bonus cap has been increased from $75,000 to $125,000, correspondingly the beige turn bonus has been increased from $50,000 to $85,000.

Miscellaneous Changes

• You are no longer able to spy on alliances with which you are allied.
• The city page now has a button to directly copy the city’s build without having to go to the export page.
• The trade cap has been increased to allow trades of up to a hundred million units.
• The max bulletin length has been increased to 25,000 characters.
• An icon will now show on the trade page on trades with members of your own alliance.

Roadmap

The road ahead is exciting! Now that we have a team, and I’ve got more time over the summer, I hope to have even more content out over the next few months. Check out a summary below!

April

• Trades refactor
• Tariffs (https://forum.politicsandwar.com/index.php?/topic/36165-game-development-discussion-tariffs)
• New battle simulator
• Generals (https://forum.politicsandwar.com/index.php?/topic/36220-game-development-discussion-generals)
• Lots of quality of life changes!

May (depending on the Game Design Team’s progress)

• Bulletins overhaul
• Color bloc councils
• Lots more quality of life changes!

 

Thank you guys so much for hanging in there, I hope you’re as excited as I am about what the summer will hold for Politics and War! Have a great day everyone!

[Jacob Knox]

It's all so glorious. You guys are amazing! Looking forward to what is to come.

[Rewan Demontay]

Awesome sauce stuff, thank you Village and all of ya!

[Buorhann]

This is fricking stupid.  Increasing color bonus, bringing in projects that further help the nuke raiding meta without any kind of consequences or balancing to those builds, etc.

 

Do you guys even think about the future of this game?

[Kastor]

Do have to agree with Buor, nuke turrets already had a lot of advantages, to the point where complaints were coming through. Now you’ve buffed that playstyle.

 

Honestly, atp players should just buy those projects then go to whales and demand they pay them or get nuked. And there’s no real recourse either because with the score range going lower it’s insanely easier to just turret alliances.

Edited April 7 by Kastor

[Buorhann]

Just build your nation with Alum, Fuel, Ammo, and Uranium mines.  Jack it all up since there's no real Improvement destruction in the game.  Build all the nuke/missile projects.

Go crazy.  Color bonus and Daily income bonus (Plus the income protection you have that keeps them from being looted) plus the self sufficient improvement resources, and you can build nukes/missiles without worry about being blockaded.

You can have 50/10 Improvement slots of self-sufficiency to do this because the Infra Cap means jack shit.  Then just go to town hitting all the whales and nations out there.  Fresh built nukes/missiles are protected from being spied on.  Just check in once a day, "Oh I got 12 MAPs? Nuke."  Go back to doing other things because no matter what your target does, they can't stop you.  Sure they can fast beige you with 5 Naval/3 Ground attacks, but they're eating at least 1 nuke and 2 missiles in that time frame.  If they mess up, that's 2 nukes + whatever missiles.  If they don't beige you, well, you just beiged them and loot the hell out of them.

And if you get beiged, that's more bonus income and the ability to resupply yourself if needed.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

This balance/game design team is stupid.

"But the projects are expensive" - Please...  Anybody can get those within weeks, if not days.

"What's your solution to this, Hippo?"  Well, one solution is that any improvements over infra level cap should have increased destruction chances.  Don't jack up the color bonus and inflate MORE free income into the game.  That's beyond stupidity.  Remove the spy protection from nukes and missiles or remove these projects in the game.  Could also lower the income protection limit that can't be looted.

All of these ideas people will hate, but they're necessary to maintain a balance.

Edited April 7 by Buorhann

[Callum]

No updates to KENO? 
Disappointing.  

[GabrielSerealia]

It's cool to see updates, though why the simplification and streamline of the revenues page? It was nice being able to see how many resources were being consumed or produced along with the production modifiers for food being easily accessible to view. I have my own add-on as well that would show the money income and expense differences for resources (not as accurate due to market prices changing but was good for estimating things).

I'm also in partial agreement with Buor, as I think Nukes are already fairly strong where they stand. I doubt the projects would be rolled back but could there be an increase in the Fallout Shelters bonus to compensate for the increased damage and improvement destruction?

[Keegoz]

8 hours ago, Buorhann said:

Just build your nation with Alum, Fuel, Ammo, and Uranium mines.  Jack it all up since there's no real Improvement destruction in the game.  Build all the nuke/missile projects.

Go crazy.  Color bonus and Daily income bonus (Plus the income protection you have that keeps them from being looted) plus the self sufficient improvement resources, and you can build nukes/missiles without worry about being blockaded.

You can have 50/10 Improvement slots of self-sufficiency to do this because the Infra Cap means jack shit.  Then just go to town hitting all the whales and nations out there.  Fresh built nukes/missiles are protected from being spied on.  Just check in once a day, "Oh I got 12 MAPs? Nuke."  Go back to doing other things because no matter what your target does, they can't stop you.  Sure they can fast beige you with 5 Naval/3 Ground attacks, but they're eating at least 1 nuke and 2 missiles in that time frame.  If they mess up, that's 2 nukes + whatever missiles.  If they don't beige you, well, you just beiged them and loot the hell out of them.

And if you get beiged, that's more bonus income and the ability to resupply yourself if needed.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

This balance/game design team is stupid.

"But the projects are expensive" - Please...  Anybody can get those within weeks, if not days.

"What's your solution to this, Hippo?"  Well, one solution is that any improvements over infra level cap should have increased destruction chances.  Don't jack up the color bonus and inflate MORE free income into the game.  That's beyond stupidity.  Remove the spy protection from nukes and missiles or remove these projects in the game.  Could also lower the income protection limit that can't be looted.

All of these ideas people will hate, but they're necessary to maintain a balance.

This isn't how nuke rouging works and sustaining 2 nukes buying per day whilst having 50/10 improvements would be rather difficult. Loading yourself up with resources sounds a little silly unless you want to give away loot. I'm sure people will use this to stack nukes but they can ultimately be spied away.

Colour blocs are being reworked entirely atm. This is a stop-gap fix for the time being.

[Ramona]

12 hours ago, Village said:

New Projects

Two new projects have been added to the game, Guiding Satellite and Nuclear Launch Facility! More information about them can be found in the Game Development Discussion post here https://forum.politicsandwar.com/index.php?/topic/36867-game-development-discussion-update-feedback/.

The projects are alright, I don't really have a strong opinion about their mechanics.

But the prices are fricking ridiculous (this has been mentioned by other players in other forum posts referring to this update). 

$1.2b for 1 extra nuke a day and like $800m for GS.

For comparison, UP to AUP is x2 the price and AUP to MP is x1.5 the price. Though these are econ projects and stepping stones for younger players to catch up so I understand they aren't supposed to be become exponentially expensive.

So, I will compare 2 similar military projects, Missile Launch Pad and Space Program (I will just ignore that SP also gives the pathway to the GOAT Spy Sat and the other projects, though this also supports my point).

MLP ($60m) that gives +2 missiles a day and SP ($120m) that gives +1 missile a day is only x2 up. Though I get missiles and nukes aren't 1:1 with the current stats.

But does +1 nuke a day really demand x10 the price of the predecessor project? (like seriously wtaf)



I suggest a much more reasonable price of 35k gas, alum and ura. Which with current prices is about $350m, about x2.8 the price of NRF, and I think that is even too expensive too, x2 would be enough.

However, if this a whale only project and only intended for 30 people to get and 6 people to actually use for 5% of their time playing then feel free to ignore this criticism.

PS: Econ Project ROI =/ Military Project ROI, sure there is an ROI on military projects but it is not 1:1 as Econ projects are measured.

[KindaEpicMoah]

12 hours ago, Kastor said:

Honestly, atp players should just buy those projects then go to whales and demand they pay them or get nuked

Implying this doesn't already happen to your allies

[Krampus]

On 4/8/2024 at 8:01 AM, Ramona said:

-snip-

It is not intended to be a cheap project. This is a military project, the return on the project lies in the damage you deal, and NLF basically doubles your damage output. Thats also a reason why the price is relatively high insofar project prices go. It is clear cut intended to be an expensive, whale tier project that only a fraction of people will buy.

due to the "R1-and-done" nature of wars, the biggest whales get out of wars with very little damage received, on the winning side. The war score change went some way in terms of fixing this (as seen in the last global), but when you account for inflation, it's more like a band-aid fix and not a real long term fix to the core problem. Speaking bluntly, this nuke project is also basically a band-aid. We can't fix the core gameplay mechanics, so this is the best we will get. 

In my view, this is the best middle-ground. The project won't be cheap enough where people mass buy it (like NRF) while also allowing increased damage for the losing side of a conflict. 1bn for a project is on the expensive side, such that not even alliances will easily be able to mass buy it.

If you nuke one extra 2.8k infra city per day (for a month), you'll have dealt more than the price of this project. Since the entire purpose of the project is to let you deal more damage, I think that's a good return on your investment.

Edited April 9 by Krampus

[Autumn Annayah]

Is it safe to say yall abandoned the perk tree thing mentioned a year ago or that still being worked on?

[Keegoz]

2 hours ago, Autumn Annayah said:

Is it safe to say yall abandoned the perk tree thing mentioned a year ago or that still being worked on?

We asked recently what update the community would like next, and perks did not come out on top. It is unlikely we see them in the foreseeable future.

Currently the work required to design it vs the potential increase in gameplay just doesn't add up to being a priority update.

[Village]

15 hours ago, GabrielSerealia said:

It's cool to see updates, though why the simplification and streamline of the revenues page? It was nice being able to see how many resources were being consumed or produced along with the production modifiers for food being easily accessible to view. I have my own add-on as well that would show the money income and expense differences for resources (not as accurate due to market prices changing but was good for estimating things).

We're going to take a look at adding some more fun stuff! This is just the initial revision of the page. As well, the modifier icons for food have been added back, those were an oversight on our part.

[Raphael]

20 hours ago, Buorhann said:

Just build your nation with Alum, Fuel, Ammo, and Uranium mines.  Jack it all up since there's no real Improvement destruction in the game.  Build all the nuke/missile projects.

Go crazy.  Color bonus and Daily income bonus (Plus the income protection you have that keeps them from being looted) plus the self sufficient improvement resources, and you can build nukes/missiles without worry about being blockaded.

You can have 50/10 Improvement slots of self-sufficiency to do this because the Infra Cap means jack shit.  Then just go to town hitting all the whales and nations out there.  Fresh built nukes/missiles are protected from being spied on.  Just check in once a day, "Oh I got 12 MAPs? Nuke."  Go back to doing other things because no matter what your target does, they can't stop you.  Sure they can fast beige you with 5 Naval/3 Ground attacks, but they're eating at least 1 nuke and 2 missiles in that time frame.  If they mess up, that's 2 nukes + whatever missiles.  If they don't beige you, well, you just beiged them and loot the hell out of them.

And if you get beiged, that's more bonus income and the ability to resupply yourself if needed.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

This balance/game design team is stupid.

"But the projects are expensive" - Please...  Anybody can get those within weeks, if not days.

"What's your solution to this, Hippo?"  Well, one solution is that any improvements over infra level cap should have increased destruction chances.  Don't jack up the color bonus and inflate MORE free income into the game.  That's beyond stupidity.  Remove the spy protection from nukes and missiles or remove these projects in the game.  Could also lower the income protection limit that can't be looted.

All of these ideas people will hate, but they're necessary to maintain a balance.

I'm not trying to flame you when I say this... but this reads like a post from a new player who just got raided for the first time.

It's crazy how we're almost a decade into PnW and people still think the raiding playstyle is "just that easy."

 

Spoiler

If you want to talk about insane down-declares as the problem with game balance, let's have that discussion because it's sorely needed. Nukes though? Nukes are, to quote a famous player, a loser's weapon. They desperately needed a buff, and these projects may not have gone far enough. MAPs still limit any individual nation to receiving one per day, this is just now a simple question of monetary damages.

I also disagree with the idea that soft-locking people's nations is the solution to game balance. Being locked out of doing things isn't fun or engaging, it just leads to people logging off and not coming back. The daily login bonus, rewarded ads, pre-nerf baseball, and other small-money mechanics are absolutely a way of being able to take a small action (like a nuke or missile) when you're triple-slotted and zeroed. That's a good thing in my opinion.

Even with all of these "game breaking" features, there's been plenty of times that a well-timed spy has destroyed a nuke before I launched it. Or a blockade has soft-locked me from having enough money to buy soldiers or even a missile.

 

[GabrielSerealia]

2 hours ago, Village said:

We're going to take a look at adding some more fun stuff! This is just the initial revision of the page. As well, the modifier icons for food have been added back, those were an oversight on our part.

Ah okay, cool to see changes none the less!

[Buorhann]

1 hour ago, Raphael said:

It's crazy how we're almost a decade into PnW and people still think the raiding playstyle is "just that easy."

It is.  The mechanics of the game far benefit raiding than anything else.

You also have to be an idiot if a well timed spy killed your nuke when a fresh nuke has a protection on it till your next DC.

You also get $2mil daily bonus.  So how you cannot build a missile due to low cash is beyond me.

Edited April 8 by Buorhann

[MBaku]

On 4/7/2024 at 12:14 PM, Buorhann said:

Just build your nation with Alum, Fuel, Ammo, and Uranium mines.  Jack it all up since there's no real Improvement destruction in the game.  Build all the nuke/missile projects.

 

You can have 50/10 Improvement slots of self-sufficiency to do this because the Infra Cap means jack shit.  Then just go to town hitting all the whales and nations out there.  Fresh built nukes/missiles are protected from being spied on.  Just check in once a day, "Oh I got 12 MAPs? Nuke."  Go back to doing other things because no matter what your target does, they can't stop you.  Sure they can fast beige you with 5 Naval/3 Ground attacks, but they're eating at least 1 nuke and 2 missiles in that time frame.  If they mess up, that's 2 nukes + whatever missiles.  If they don't beige you, well, you just beiged them and loot the hell out of them.

And if you get beiged, that's more bonus income and the ability to resupply yourself if needed.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

This balance/game design team is stupid.
 

They already doubled the number of improvs destroyed by missile/nukes and now they’re adding another improv destroyed. If you don’t have VDS\ID then a missile can destroy 3 improvs and a nuke will take out 5 am I reading that right? That means a single player can destroy almost 20 improvs a day? Not in a single nation of course, but a single nation could lose 15 improvs from nukes a day if I understand these changes correctly, and nukes don’t kill mil improvs so it’s all passive income killed. 
 

The downside is the improv destruction comes from nukes/missiles and not from military so if you want to punish turrets you have to nuke/missile them back and eat the net loss. Thats seems backwards. I agree that the turret meta is not a great playstyle and this could lead to longer guerilla wars,  but it’s kind of a Pyrrhic victory because both parties are at war while the bystanders grow. 
 

I’ve been saying that we need ways for the losing side to fight back and deal solid net militarily but this meta is headed the opposite direction. There’s no point to sit in beige and spend 5 days doing no damage while you rebuild mil and eat spy attacks, just break immediately and continue to turret. It’s braindead and doesn’t reward advanced play styles. 
 

This COULD benefit micros by making the threat of nuke turrets much worse BUT what micros are gonna prioritize these projects over growth projects? None. So it makes no sense and won’t really help micros with smaller nations and limited project slots. Why not just remove the projects and just give us all the extra nuke/missile buffs? 

Edited April 9 by MBaku

[MBaku]

Normally I’d be first in line for new military projects but the cost is kind of silly and these projects don’t really promote military game play, just the opposite. They promote no-military gameplay which I find boring. 
 

let me know when you get a project to build on Propaganda Bureau to build more MILITARY as a military project

Here’s an idea - a project that allows you to build twice the military while in beige. Speed up rebuild time so you can actually FIGHT wars 

 

[Keegoz]

1 hour ago, MBaku said:

Normally I’d be first in line for new military projects but the cost is kind of silly and these projects don’t really promote military game play, just the opposite. They promote no-military gameplay which I find boring. 
 

let me know when you get a project to build on Propaganda Bureau to build more MILITARY as a military project

Here’s an idea - a project that allows you to build twice the military while in beige. Speed up rebuild time so you can actually FIGHT wars 

 

These suggestions have been routinely shut down or received overwhelmingly negative feedback. The design team spent almost an entire year trying to adjust/fix the war system and we had nothing to show for it at the end due to either a lack of agreement from the team or public backlash. The war system is the one we have and the only way we'll see any real adjustment is to do a complete overhaul, which would mean probably no updates and potentially no wars for a period of time.

[Sweeeeet Ronny D]

8 hours ago, MBaku said:

They already doubled the number of improvs destroyed by missile/nukes and now they’re adding another improv destroyed. If you don’t have VDS\ID then a missile can destroy 3 improvs and a nuke will take out 5 am I reading that right? That means a single player can destroy almost 20 improvs a day? Not in a single nation of course, but a single nation could lose 15 improvs from nukes a day if I understand these changes correctly, and nukes don’t kill mil improvs so it’s all passive income killed.

The issue I have is, even that increase is a drop in the hat.  Granted I am an outlier, but I have 3000 improvements in my nation.  killing 5 improvements destroys 0.16% of my improvements.

[MBaku]

 

7 hours ago, Sweeeeet Ronny D said:

The issue I have is, even that increase is a drop in the hat.  Granted I am an outlier, but I have 3000 improvements in my nation.  killing 5 improvements destroys 0.16% of my improvements.

I think the fundamental problem is using nukes/missiles as the primary improvement destroyers. There is no way to balance the impact is has against small nations vs. big nations. 15 improvements (3 nukes) a day a ton for a c20 on 2k infra, it's nothing to a c50 with 3k infra. 

That goes back to @Buorhann's idea -and an idea that we've brought up many times in the past - but as @Keegoz says, have never come to a consensus on - which is improv degradation when you infra does not support that number of improvs or drastically increasing the ability for military attacks to destroy improvs. Generals will have some impact with some traits on their dev tree i think but that's still sporadic and unreliable to become the meta i would think. 

 

Here's another idea - Aircraft can target improvs - (3) for IT, (2) for MS, (1) for PV. 

 

After the general improv drops - we should reassess the new meta and we should absolutely revisit war balancing. Beige rework didn't work but that's only because there was a pointless beige cap of 5 days. But rapid military rebuilding in beige should be looked at because of the major buffs to nuke/missiles that discourage military fighting at all in a one-sided war. There should be a way to use military to gain some net with flash attacks in a way that can equal or surpass the damage that nuke/missile turrets do. This just isn't possible with the opportunity cost of a 6 day rebuild (extra day for rebuy). 

[Keegoz]

11 hours ago, MBaku said:

 

I think the fundamental problem is using nukes/missiles as the primary improvement destroyers. There is no way to balance the impact is has against small nations vs. big nations. 15 improvements (3 nukes) a day a ton for a c20 on 2k infra, it's nothing to a c50 with 3k infra. 

That goes back to @Buorhann's idea -and an idea that we've brought up many times in the past - but as @Keegoz says, have never come to a consensus on - which is improv degradation when you infra does not support that number of improvs or drastically increasing the ability for military attacks to destroy improvs. Generals will have some impact with some traits on their dev tree i think but that's still sporadic and unreliable to become the meta i would think. 

 

Here's another idea - Aircraft can target improvs - (3) for IT, (2) for MS, (1) for PV. 

 

After the general improv drops - we should reassess the new meta and we should absolutely revisit war balancing. Beige rework didn't work but that's only because there was a pointless beige cap of 5 days. But rapid military rebuilding in beige should be looked at because of the major buffs to nuke/missiles that discourage military fighting at all in a one-sided war. There should be a way to use military to gain some net with flash attacks in a way that can equal or surpass the damage that nuke/missile turrets do. This just isn't possible with the opportunity cost of a 6 day rebuild (extra day for rebuy). 

I'm waiting until Generals are done and we have a little bit more of an idea on how they impact warfare. My current thinking is to increase naval attacks destroying improvements by 5-10% and perhaps creating a modifier to destroy improvements when you're over the cap.

My major concern of increasing it too much, is how punishing wars become if you lose and how much it could encourage the winning side to keep bashing up the losing side. There are a couple of things I think we also need to consider with beige, one thing I would like would be a straight up increase in unit buying if you are on beige and decreasing spies ability to destroy units or at least as many.

[Robert2424]

Not sure how either new project is healthy for the game. You could honestly double or triple the costs of these projects and people are going to buy them. Not sure why you be for Buffing Nuke Turreting and pirates extorting players unless you already abuse this system. You already have alliances entire "war strategy" to sell there regular millitary and just nuke turret the enemy alliance. 

 

Also. Don't understand the argument of not being able to sustain building two nukes a day while blockaded. You still produce resources and donating to the game you can just get the resources you need. Not that nukes are that expensive to begin with.