Limit bank aid

[Gregory House]

Care to expound why?

 

I think aid should be unlimited and what you can do with the aid should be looked at, here, if anything.

 

The money earned fairly by nations is theirs to do with as they please. I don't like restricting the free flow of money.

 

I don't proclaim to have an alternate solution, I just don't like this one.

[Aphelion]

I'm currently not in favor of an aid cap. I'd much rather discuss the merits of some sort of infrastructure purchase constraints.

 

I see. But unlimited infra purchase is not the real problem and putting constraints on it does not solve the more significant problems that an unlimited aid cap presents.

[fistofdoom]

I see. But unlimited infra purchase is not the real problem and putting constraints on it does not solve the more significant problems that an unlimited aid cap presents.

 

Moreover, there are more ways to exploit it in the future. Another one I can think of is when the game is old enough, we will have nations with enough income that can power boost small nations in a very short amount of time. The city build limit is helping prevent that as of the moment, but as far as I know there is no buy limit on infra. Even with 2-3 cities, we may see nations less than a month old nations already at 1000 infra or so.

 

With constraints on cities, some sort of constraint on infrastructure purchases, and having military constrained by population, where would the abuse come from? Having a well-funded nation? Maybe I just dont clearly see the point that you're trying to get across.

[rapmanej]

 

 

 

 

With constraints on cities, some sort of constraint on infrastructure purchases, and having military constrained by population, where would the abuse come from? Having a well-funded nation? Maybe I just dont clearly see the point that you're trying to get across.

 

 

honestly, an aid cap is an easier solution than limiting all of that.  

[fistofdoom]

honestly, an aid cap is an easier solution than limiting all of that.  

There already is a limit on cities and soldiers are scaled to your population, if you feel like it is the root of the problem then maybe the limits on cities and limits on soldiers should be done away with and every nation have a hard aid cap instead. :|

 

oops, thought you were aphelion

Edited January 17, 2015 by fistofdoom

[Aphelion]

 

 

With constraints on cities, some sort of constraint on infrastructure purchases, and having military constrained by population, where would the abuse come from? Having a well-funded nation? Maybe I just dont clearly see the point that you're trying to get across.

 

It opens a lot of scenarios. For instance, imagine a well-funded lower tier raiding alliance (funded by a group of untouchable upper tier nations) that targets new nations for fun, heck even applicants and aligned micro nations. Of course, other alliances will try to stop them since they are basically driving new players away. But with unlimited funding from their upper tier, they can basically take all hits that other alliances throw at them as damages in that tier can easily be rebuilt.

 

With constant aid amounting to millions or so, they can basically raid forever while taking no serious damage.

 

With an aid cap, this scenario will not be possible.

 

 

Edit: added something

Edited January 17, 2015 by Aphelion

[rapmanej]

There already is a limit on cities and soldiers are scaled to your population, if you feel like it is the root of the problem then maybe the limits on cities and limits on soldiers should be done away with and every nation have a hard aid cap instead. :|

 

I see what you are saying, but picture this scenario.  

 

1.  Given alliance A has 100 members, member 1 has a huge level of development, and is making 1 billion a day.  A second member has just joined the game, member 1 sends him 800 million.  He can only buy a city every 10 days, but he can buy those two cities up to his hearts content with infrastructure, thereby joining the middle tier in 1 day, not to mention buying a huge military.    

 

Can't you see how this eventually causes the game to collapse on itself?  

Edited January 17, 2015 by rapmanej

[Dwynn]

You are arguing that you would rather not fix an inherently unstable system, because your nation will benefit from it, regardless if it hurts the game as a whole.  

 

You are entitled to your opinion, but keep in mind it's rather selfish to want to keep a system that destroys the game, only because your nation will benefit.  

 

 

I see what you are saying, but picture this scenario.  

 

1.  Given alliance A has 100 members, member 1 has a huge level of development, and is making 1 billion a day.  A second member has just joined the game, member 1 sends him 800 million.  He can only buy a city every 10 days, but he can buy those two cities up to his hearts content with infrastructure, thereby joining the middle tier in 1 day, not to mention buying a huge military.    

 

Can't you see how this eventually causes the game to collapse on itself?  

 

Clearly, you're not aware of the ramped scaling of infrastructure. What you consider a broken system is already limited in various fashions. Cities/projects are limited to 1 per 10 days. Infrastructure costs ramp drastically as you grow. I know it's probably hard for you to comprehend as your cities are only at 500 infra a piece. Look to your alliance, or even my PW Tools if you'd like to play with calculators to see how much infrastructure ramps up.

 

One could not simply build 1 single city into mid-range overnight. Just... can't... happen.

 

Another problem with the proposed solution you're making is people can simply get around it via trading. Unless you're planning on capping what can be done via trades. If you're suggesting that, you're killing more drastically than any possible situation where a newb could jump up his first city.

 

 

To address the "Alliance A" funding "Alliance B" aspects. To be honest, I don't see the problem with it? Larger alliances eventually will start doing that, whether you know it now or not, to deal with the newb alliances that crowd their color stock.

 

Sheepy has stated time and again that wars are INTENDED to be as destructive as they are for a reason. Because the cost for recovering from the wars is a sort of "reset". It will cost a great deal (usually unattainable for any quick timeframe) for nations & alliances to recover from wars in the higher levels. Again, things look different from the lower levels, and I'm well aware of that. But as you grow your nation, you'll see what others are talking about.

 

Limiting the aid will do much more harm than good.

[fistofdoom]

Hmmm. That's a strong argument provided someone actually reaches those levels. That doesn't fully counter the argument that having constraints on infrastructure purchases (i'm not thinking 100 infra per day or anything abysmal like that) would be a valid way of addressing the issue.

 

If there are individuals who are trying to break the game then I'm more in favor of having them banned from the game than having game mechanics that might end up causing problems themselves.

 

If one day in the future I want to send a few million to a new guy as part of a growth loan, I'd like to freely do that at my own digression, and not be limited to some miniscule number.

 

I'm in favor of eventually having alliance-driven aid programs that enable new players to have one thousand infrastructure in a new city, provided it becomes possible from multiple alliances, and provided more interesting aspects related to infrastructure and/or population levels are introduced by sheepy in the future.

 

What I'm not in favor of is having 20k infrastructure in a new guy's first city. You say having aid caps would solve that, I say having infrastructure purchasing limits (maybe something like 100 per city +400, per day) would be an acceptable limiter.

 

Anyways, why not also propose a limit on trades too? If they wanted to, they could send 5000 steel for 1 dollar to a new nation and they then sell it all as a work around to the aid limit?

[rapmanej]

Clearly, you're not aware of the ramped scaling of infrastructure. What you consider a broken system is already limited in various fashions. Cities/projects are limited to 1 per 10 days. Infrastructure costs ramp drastically as you grow. I know it's probably hard for you to comprehend as your cities are only at 500 infra a piece. Look to your alliance, or even my PW Tools if you'd like to play with calculators to see how much infrastructure ramps up.

 

One could not simply build 1 single city into mid-range overnight. Just... can't... happen.

 

Another problem with the proposed solution you're making is people can simply get around it via trading. Unless you're planning on capping what can be done via trades. If you're suggesting that, you're killing more drastically than any possible situation where a newb could jump up his first city.

 

 

To address the "Alliance A" funding "Alliance B" aspects. To be honest, I don't see the problem with it? Larger alliances eventually will start doing that, whether you know it now or not, to deal with the newb alliances that crowd their color stock.

 

Sheepy has stated time and again that wars are INTENDED to be as destructive as they are for a reason. Because the cost for recovering from the wars is a sort of "reset". It will cost a great deal (usually unattainable for any quick timeframe) for nations & alliances to recover from wars in the higher levels. Again, things look different from the lower levels, and I'm well aware of that. But as you grow your nation, you'll see what others are talking about.

 

Limiting the aid will do much more harm than good.

 

Provided I have a massive nation send me a gigantic aid package, why wouldn't I be able to build up into the midtier?  Suppose I have four nations send me a gigantic aid package...

 

Obviously, this would require an end to sweetheart trade deals, and price floors and ceilings for trade deals.  

 

The aid would be limited, but it would not be limited at a minimal level.  We just need several safeguards in place to prevent wholesale unbalancing of the economic system that brought PN.  

 

If this is not fixed, the game will become highly unbalanced, and will eventually have to be reset, at which point an aid cap will have to be implemented.  There is no escaping this.   

[Dwynn]

Ok, for the sake of argument. I crunched numbers for you guys for a brand new nation to reach "mid-range".

 

For definition of mid-range, I'm using 500 score. While this would not be "mid-range" when there happens to be a nation making 1bil per day, it's mid-range now. So I'm using it to show how ludicrous this thought process iss.

 

For a nation to reach 500 score, with 1 city, it would require 10,000 infrastructure. The cost for the infrastructure alone would be $2,104,148,179.17.  Assuming you could purchase that much infrastructure at one time, you'd have to purchase a massive amount of land too to offset population density, which attributes to crime and disease.

 

Purchasing to 10,000 land as a matter of simplicity (though if we're doing this it should be much higher to combat crime & disease): $614,206,600

 

Then with if you bought imrpovements to maximum slots, you would still have 103 free improvement slots.

 

The maximum military that single city could field: 15000 soldiers, 1250 tanks, 90 airplanes, and 15 ships.

 

That city would be a sitting duck, and this is just at mid-range.

 

As I said. It... won't... happen. Stop with this aid cap talk now please.

 

 

Edit: So it would cost $2,718,354,779.17, and would then receive massive cost damage due to the fact that it could not defend itself from other nations in that range.

Your logic is broken, but only because you've yet to experience the higher tier. And I'm not saying it condescendingly, I'm simply trying to shed light on how you are wrong in your thought process.

The cost for your purchase query is approximately: 2,104,148,179.17You

Edit Edit:

Also. Yay for spreadsheets (Cynic) and calculators (Pw Tools)

Edited January 17, 2015 by Micheal Malone

[rapmanej]

Ok, for the sake of argument. I crunched numbers for you guys for a brand new nation to reach "mid-range".

 

For definition of mid-range, I'm using 500 score. While this would not be "mid-range" when there happens to be a nation making 1bil per day, it's mid-range now. So I'm using it to show how ludicrous this thought process iss.

 

For a nation to reach 500 score, with 1 city, it would require 10,000 infrastructure. The cost for the infrastructure alone would be $2,104,148,179.17.  Assuming you could purchase that much infrastructure at one time, you'd have to purchase a massive amount of land too to offset population density, which attributes to crime and disease.

 

Purchasing to 10,000 land as a matter of simplicity (though if we're doing this it should be much higher to combat crime & disease): $614,206,600

 

Then with if you bought imrpovements to maximum slots, you would still have 103 free improvement slots.

 

The maximum military that single city could field: 15000 soldiers, 1250 tanks, 90 airplanes, and 15 ships.

 

That city would be a sitting duck, and this is just at mid-range.

 

As I said. It... won't... happen. Stop with this aid cap talk now please.

 

 

Edit: So it would cost $2,718,354,779.17, and would then receive massive cost damage due to the fact that it could not defend itself from other nations in that range.

Your logic is broken, but only because you've yet to experience the higher tier. And I'm not saying it condescendingly, I'm simply trying to shed light on how you are wrong in your thought process.

The cost for your purchase query is approximately: 2,104,148,179.17You

Edit Edit:

Also. Yay for spreadsheets (Cynic) and calculators (Pw Tools)

 

But you're forgetting that this nation would be part of a large alliance, and any attack on that nation would surely bring both alliances to war, and if a nation is making 1 billion a day, then all it would take is 3 nations to send one aid package, and then instant 500 score.  

[Dwynn]

Ok, so I see logic doesn't work with you. I'll just leave this discussion now with a simple:

 

[Shellhound]

And in that war that nation would get shat on. If we ever get to the point where people are making a billion a day they !@#$ing deserve to send however much aid they want simply for longevity.

[rapmanej]

And in that war that nation would get shat on. If we ever get to the point where people are making a billion a day they !@#$ deserve to send however much aid they want simply for longevity.

 

Again, at that level, there will be little chance of unaligned nations, so any attack would bring inter-alliance war.  

[Dwynn]

Also, I felt bad posting the meme and leaving the conversation, so I'll explain.

 

The mid-range definition that I used is by today's standards. As in, the top nation (he's a guardian member) is just a smidge over 1k score at 1086. I know for a fact he makes NOWHERE near close to 1bil a day. That's by today's standards.

 

Now using the magic hooey-balooey 1bil income that you seem to believe which is easily attainable, will be a MUCH higher score. MUCH MUCH higher. We're talking like years down the road due to the sheer limitations already put in this game. Now... by the time we have not only one, but multiple of those nations, residing in the same alliance, the "mid-range" is going to be much much higher.

 

For shits and giggles, here's the cost to jump infra from the 10k mark in the previous post to 15k: $4,890,838,334.76

 

Doing this does nothing but push the score to 873. They are still left with the same amount of resources being produce, the same miniscule military. It just won't happen. Because even then, 873 will not be considered mid-range by the time you have multiple nations creating billion per day income.

[fistofdoom]

I think he wants people to run out of money quickly as the limiter for war.

Edited January 17, 2015 by fistofdoom

[Phiney]

To back up Malone with more numbers. As the current second most infra holder, I make 2,250,000 a day. With each city I get an extra 250,000 at the moment. This game will never reach 1 bil a day.

[Grillick]

Ok, for the sake of argument. I crunched numbers for you guys for a brand new nation to reach "mid-range".

 

For definition of mid-range, I'm using 500 score. While this would not be "mid-range" when there happens to be a nation making 1bil per day, it's mid-range now. So I'm using it to show how ludicrous this thought process iss.

 

For a nation to reach 500 score, with 1 city, it would require 10,000 infrastructure. The cost for the infrastructure alone would be $2,104,148,179.17. Assuming you could purchase that much infrastructure at one time, you'd have to purchase a massive amount of land too to offset population density, which attributes to crime and disease.

 

Purchasing to 10,000 land as a matter of simplicity (though if we're doing this it should be much higher to combat crime & disease): $614,206,600

 

Then with if you bought imrpovements to maximum slots, you would still have 103 free improvement slots.

 

The maximum military that single city could field: 15000 soldiers, 1250 tanks, 90 airplanes, and 15 ships.

 

That city would be a sitting duck, and this is just at mid-range.

 

As I said. It... won't... happen. Stop with this aid cap talk now please.

 

 

Edit: So it would cost $2,718,354,779.17, and would then receive massive cost damage due to the fact that it could not defend itself from other nations in that range.

Your logic is broken, but only because you've yet to experience the higher tier. And I'm not saying it condescendingly, I'm simply trying to shed light on how you are wrong in your thought process.

The cost for your purchase query is approximately: 2,104,148,179.17You

Edit Edit:

Also. Yay for spreadsheets (Cynic) and calculators (Pw Tools)

Out of curiosity, what's the cost for two 5000 infra cities?

[rapmanej]

Out of curiosity, what's the cost for two 5000 infra cities?

 

536 million for the infra, plus the extra cost for improvements and land.  

[Grillick]

That's a much more reasonable cost to get a 0 day old nation to 500 score.

[Magicboyd25]

Im not convinced especially with the evidence against it presented that this is a good idea.

 

I would say no on this proposal.

[Dark Specter]

if a nation making a billion dollars sends it to a newb to make them bigger and bring them into the mid tier quicker and then gets attacked and recieves military aid from his alliance which in turn sparks an inter alliance war.... Well i can tell you that, that new nation will get decimated along with his alliance as well as the opposing alliance which will cause the monetary damage on his side to be higher then what he was given to get him to where he would be with the 1 billion aid.... Plus now the nation making 1 billion a day will now be making less do to the inter alliance war and will not only have to rebuild his nation but he will also have to help rebuild his entire alliance which could take months.

 

Plus from my experience with war i can tell that sitting here with 4 cities each at 900 infra (i would have more if the nubs in rose didnt war TC but whatevs) could label me as a mid tier nation but i got set back a few months due to rebuilding and i have now just gotten to 900 infra and im not making enough money to get my cities to 1k infra which in my case is only 400 more infra needed total..l so with that said i cam assure that war is devastating and that more wars are to come so your scenario will never happen.

[SoS]

Clearly you haven't been in PN when an alliance of less than 10 players basically "broke" the game using this mechanic.

 

I agree with this idea. Better do it now while the game is still relatively young. Unlimited aid caps are inherently problematic and can easily be exploited in the future. Think of an eternal war in the lower tier with upper tier nations funding them for the lulz.

 

Unrivaled nations are the problem. Setting aid caps would make it impossible to catch up to them.

 

Aid bombing lower tier isn't a problem if all mature nations on all sides can do it relatively equal.

 

If we can't even out the top ten in 2 months, I'd seriously start pushing for a reset. But, the reason these games die is people complain about the donations a reset would wipe clean.

[WISD0MTREE]

Again, at that level, there will be little chance of unaligned nations, so any attack would bring inter-alliance war.  

Hi there. You must be new.