5/17/2015 - Balancing Changes

[Eviljak]

I disagree...it gives someone with alot of cities but a small amoint of infrastructure a huge advantage over a nation with more infra and less cities. It allows a nation to literally build up for war rather than having to strategize on wat to keep on hand at all times...really hurts the strategy of war and espionage altogether.

 

I think politics & war just took a step back.

[Alex]

I've made a small update due to popular outcry - a range has been added to espionage operations. It is the same as the current war range, -25%/+75%. You can only spy on nations within this range of your score.

[George W. Bush]

cool

[Eric]

*Clears Throat*

"SHEEPY, SHEEPY, SHEEPY!", the audience yells.

 

"Hello, fellow citizens of Orbis! I am here to announce a amazing new game changer! A spy range! Along with some other stuff"

 

"YEAH WOOOOO SHEEPY!" the audience yells. They clearly admire him very much.

 

"You may now only spy on nations within your war range! (-25/+75)"

 

"OH MY GOD AWESOME!" the audience yells.

 

"Bye now!" Sheepy walks off the stage.

 

5 SECONDS LATER

 

International Espionage Alliance founded.

Description: We have people from score 20, to people with score 1000. We can spy on anyone you want us to, at a reasonable fee of course. Hire the International Espionage Alliance today! 

 

Just what I thought of the second I read this thread.

[Kim Jong-Il]

I think spy recruitment should be based on infrastructure amount. 1 spy for every 5k infra a nation has, like how projects work. 

 

This bit in the description also makes me chucle now: "Building a military takes time, they cannot be created overnight and are not free!"

 

You should add an asterisc to it and put under: *with the exception of spies

[Vincent]

The move on spies is potentially bad.

 

Now if we get spy attack we will know definitely is someone within our range

[Kim Jong-Il]

*Clears Throat*

"SHEEPY, SHEEPY, SHEEPY!", the audience yells.

 

"Hello, fellow citizens of Orbis! I am here to announce a amazing new game changer! A spy range! Along with some other stuff"

 

"YEAH WOOOOO SHEEPY!" the audience yells. They clearly admire him very much.

 

"You may now only spy on nations within your war range! (-25/+75)"

 

"OH MY GOD AWESOME!" the audience yells.

 

"Bye now!" Sheepy walks off the stage.

 

5 SECONDS LATER

 

International Espionage Alliance founded.

Description: We have people from score 20, to people with score 1000. We can spy on anyone you want us to, at a reasonable fee of course. Hire the International Espionage Alliance today! 

 

Just what I thought of the second I read this thread.

 

Lol, but they'd make petty change and probably get rolled to hell/ spied until they become useless

[Kim Jong-Il]

The move on spies is potentially bad.

 

Now if we get spy attack we will know definitely is someone within our range

 

I'm sure you can tell who spied on you from the 100's of posibilities 

Edited May 18, 2015 by Kim Jong-Il

[Belisarius]

I've made a small update due to popular outcry - a range has been added to espionage operations. It is the same as the current war range, -25%/+75%. You can only spy on nations within this range of your score.

5 people whining about the tyranny of large nations spying on small nations does not make a popular outcry. There was no reason for this change, since we hadn't had a problem with this given that every nation can only spy once a day.

 

The greatest threat to small nations are raiders, which in turn effects participation and growth of this game. It is not large nations who "terrorize" small nations. And one of the only ways for alliances to help their members being raided are spy ops. This change nullifies that.

 

Not a good change at all.

[Alex]

The move on spies is potentially bad.

 

Now if we get spy attack we will know definitely is someone within our range

 

It's possible for you to be in someone's range without them being in yours.

[Shakyr]

I think spy recruitment should be based on infrastructure amount. 1 spy for every 5k infra a nation has, like how projects work.

I more had the thought of 1 spy per 500 infra. That way a nation would have to at least bring a city up to 500 infra, in order to get another spy. It's also feasible still, for lower nations to get a few spies, for gathering intel during wars (which is an issue with your suggestion of 5000 infra).

[Atzuya]

Those 5 people are real !@#$ing loud tho, and they get annoying after a few while. It's gonna feel nice to see them quiet for once

[Pax]

I like the changes overall, but agree with the thought that it should only be one spy per city. I can buy 14 spies a day now, and I'm not even one of the top nations.

[Placentica]

Change and updates are good, but you keep doing these broad changes that create a bit of distrust.  I'm not sure if next month all my planes will be worthless, like missiles are, and likes spies are now.

 

The spy attack range is annoying, but expected.  Every time I buy a lot of something, you seem to nerf it costing me $10m+, lol.

 

Also what Malone said, spies are now completely worthless, as there is only a max of 100 nations to spy (at least in the uppers, and like 25 if you are top 10) on and it will be extremely easy to tell who is spying who based on activity stamps - narrowing down the range immensely.

 

5 people whining about the tyranny of large nations spying on small nations does not make a popular outcry. There was no reason for this change, since we hadn't had a problem with this given that every nation can only spy once a day.

 

The greatest threat to small nations are raiders, which in turn effects participation and growth of this game. It is not large nations who "terrorize" small nations. And one of the only ways for alliances to help their members being raided are spy ops. This change nullifies that.

 

Not a good change at all.

Best post ever.

Edited May 18, 2015 by Placentica

[Arthur James]

I prefer having lesser no. of spy recruitment without any spy range....

the former requires more strategy when you create too much enemies to remove your spies.

the later....blah.....the strategy is all about Money. setting more restriction provided less strategy you are allowed for war.

 

and the spy range indeed is terrible to restrict the strategy of warfare,

we want some spies warfare like PrincessBubblegum Vs Grillick.

 

=> the solution to achieve this is easy, don't make too much enemies which you can't handle....

=> the limit of the no. of spies would be when revenue reaches zero.

 

Example: A nation 300 spies with 3 competitors who has 100 spies each, we still have chance of success to remove all 300 within few days despite the the success rate would be rather low.

 

 

we should have a vote for older system of spy op and change it back after 31st June,2015.

 

 

 

 

5 people whining about the tyranny of large nations spying on small nations does not make a popular outcry. There was no reason for this change, since we hadn't had a problem with this given that every nation can only spy once a day.

 

The greatest threat to small nations are raiders, which in turn effects participation and growth of this game. It is not large nations who "terrorize" small nations. And one of the only ways for alliances to help their members being raided are spy ops. This change nullifies that.

 

Not a good change at all.

I agree about this, this changes gives raiders more privilege with lower score.

Edited May 18, 2015 by Arthur James

[Grayshadow]

I don't like the changes to spies. You can buy way too many a day now taking away all the strategy to it. Also limiting the range was not needed with the limit of each nation only able to do one spy op per day and each nation only being able to have 3 spy ops against it per day.  Now it is possible for you to attack some one and once you have done some damage and lowered their nation strength for you not to be able to spy them anymore while they can still spy you. Terrible update to spies.

[Caecus]

Shame the loot change didn't happen about 2 weeks ago, could've gotten some hard data to play around with. Have you tested all of this on a test server to make sure it actually works?

 

EDIT:

 

This change now makes spying away missiles/nukes/ships nearly impossible, thus making spies nearly useless. With the way the math works on attacks (something I've been trying to get you to change forever) the less spies they have, the much less you kill. Because obviously if they have less units my units should defaultly perform worse. So if they can buy 10-20+ spies a day it makes turtling in a cost range to spy missiles !@#$ obscenely easy. Your change to spies has effectively ruined spies usefulness outside of gathering intel because of the damage caps (and especially damage reduction nonsense if they have less units). Congrats on fixing the ability to quickly buy back spies, and effectively ruin their ability to actually be useful in the process.

 

With a less aggressive tone, I agree with Judge. Spying missiles becomes profitable when the enemy has less than 1-2 spies (if you want a near guarantee success rate). Spying Nukes is slightly different, though I don't imagine the number to be very high (if I were to guess, if the enemy had less than 25 spies). CIA project is now the most useless project. Spies are now just defensive padding, and everyone is going to have exactly zero spies until they get into war, in which they just buy 20 spies. Since you only kill 50% of the enemy spies, it still makes it extremely difficult to spy missiles, since they can just replenish their lost spies faster than you can kill them. 

 

EDIT:

 

I don't like the changes to spies. You can buy way too many a day now taking away all the strategy to it. Also limiting the range was not needed with the limit of each nation only able to do one spy op per day and each nation only being able to have 3 spy ops against it per day.  Now it is possible for you to attack some one and once you have done some damage and lowered their nation strength for you not to be able to spy them anymore while they can still spy you. Terrible update to spies.

 

 

I agree. Spies are a strategic resource, building them up is something that players who consider the consequences in the long term should think about, especially if they want a nuclear program. If you decrease the cost of spy actions, it would be the same as before the update, only with inflated spy numbers. In this case, you are really faced with two options: 

 

1. Revert back to the original setting, which allows for nukes to be spied on, thus making spies and the strategic usage of spies an important aspect of the game. The cons to this are the same "problems" of what NMA said, which is that people who are spied on and lost their spy force rely on the mercy of their enemies to let them rebuild.

 

2. Keep the changes, and essentially neuter spies to serve only as a defensive force, with any nation having a maximum of 30 to prevent their nukes/missiles from getting spied. Spies are no longer a strategic resource, rather protection money. 

 

In my personal opinion, if someone decides to have nuclear weapons, one of the things they should consider is that nuclear weapons are extremely powerful and expensive military hardware. If you don't want them spied away, you should have strategic foresight and build up spies. Likewise, people who have already developed spy armies are part of a strategic component of the game, they have considered well in advance the consequences of nuclear weapons and they should be rewarded for it. 

 

Your third option is to turn spy assassinations into something like a ground battle between soldiers. But that still doesn't change the fact that people who build up in advance and have foresight are rewarded for their strategic initiative. 

Edited May 18, 2015 by Caecus

[Kadin]

25% down is terrible, Sheepy. Please fix.

 

That is more limiting than the regular war range. Please fix.

[Oskar]

I love the spy range. Now I can trust that big nations won't just blow me up if I ever achieve anything. Yay Sheepy! 

[Beowulf the Second]

Adding my personal view on the spy changes.

I loved spies because it allowed me to help lower tier nations (at great cost) and be a semi-effective fighting force against larger nations, because we recruited at the same rate. Now I can't help my lower tier, and larger nations can crush me in every military aspect. I know you meant to balance the game, but it seems that you have tipped the tier scales even further.

[Bilal the Great]

gg Sheepy

[Placentica]

It should be said that nukes cost about $4m in resources (give or take depending on the markets) and missiles cost about $400,000-$450,000.  So a score of 10x is about right for nukes (pre-update nerf).  If you thought nukes score was too high you could've made them cost like 500 uranium and more like $8-10m in total cost per missile.

[Princess Bubblegum]

How about a soft cap on spy ranges instead of a hard one?

 

You could do something like: 

 

if (Attacker's NS >= Defender's NS), then: spy odds = ( Defender's NS / Attacker's NS ) * (Normal spy odds)

 

that or increasing cost:

 

if (Attacker's NS >= Defender's NS), then: spy cost = ( Attacker's NS / Defender's NS ) * (Normal spy cost)

 

Or both.

Edited May 18, 2015 by Princess Bubblegum

[Boony]

I mean, did raiders even care about getting spied on? I think the changes are good, except it should be like 1 per city. 2 per city is extreme.

[Lord Frostsword]

5 people whining about the tyranny of large nations spying on small nations does not make a popular outcry. There was no reason for this change, since we hadn't had a problem with this given that every nation can only spy once a day.

 

The greatest threat to small nations are raiders, which in turn effects participation and growth of this game. It is not large nations who "terrorize" small nations. And one of the only ways for alliances to help their members being raided are spy ops. This change nullifies that.

 

Not a good change at all.

^

This post says so much.

 

 

This update for the spies, make them useless. Now i can just sell down to 30-40 spies, and when war comes, buy by my 20 a day and keep my enemy away from the important items. It effectively removed the advantage of having spies in the first place. I spend months building up my own spies, now someone half my size and nation age can caught up to me in DAYS? How it that right for the older nation like me that have spend months building up the spies we have now.

 

I also no longer have the means to aid my young nations form spy attack in there lower tiers. Lets say a nation with 8 cities, removes all it infra from it cities. it will fall to around the 200 NS range. That nation will be able to build 16 spies a day. Any other nation at the range will only be able to build 8 or less of that. Leaving us in the upper tiers powerless to stop them unless we also sell down, and lose months of growth do partly to the new Selling infrastructure Cap as well. How is that right? CIA project is now also not worth it. 

 

This update removed one of the best elements to this game. I do not like nor support this new update, the old system is better. Please change it back