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Possible Game Updates Currently Being Tested


Alex
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I'm writing up a quick thread to give you all (the community) that does not use the test server a quick overview of what I've been working on on the test server. What we're likely to see in the next two-three weeks is a large war system update, along with a couple of other minor changes. Here's a quick overview of what's currently on the test server that I'd like to move live before December 20th.

 

  • Wars now have a system called 'resistance'. Each sides starts the war with 100 resistance, and resistance is reduced through every attack. When your opponent's resistance reaches 0, you take 20% of their money, 10% of each of their resources, and automatically destroys 10% of the infrastructure in each of their cities. They are sent to Beige, but for only 2 days. This is to add a more visual component to wars, and encourage people to want to win wars.
  • Tank casualties have been reduced by half in Ground Battles. This is to help make wars less expensive.
  • Sabotage operations (espionage) are no longer limited by improvement caps. You instead destroy between 1-5% of the target's units that you are sabotaging. This gives you a more effective way to kill aircraft aside from other aircraft. This change will be delayed until the next update, as part of a larger Espionage update.
  • Loot amounts are listed in Timelines.
  • Nuclear weapons no longer send the opponent immediately to beige
  • When winning a war and sending an opponent to beige, if they are already beige you will not reset them back to 2 days, you will instead add 2 days to their beige time. This is a buff to players who are losing multiple wars.
  • Espionage operations targeting enemy spies have reduced enemy spies killed by 30%  This change will be delayed until the next update, as part of a larger Espionage update.
  • Fortify military action has been added which costs 3 MAPs, increases your resistance by 10, and causes your opponent to take 10% more casualties if they attack you while you're fortified
  • You cannot destroy Missiles and Nukes that have been built that day
  • Gather Intelligence espionage operations will not count against the target's daily limit of spy operations. This will combat espionage slot filling.
  • Ships killed in Airstrikes reduced by 5%

Non-related war changes:

  • Read receipts added to messages
  • Link to Discord channel added to the sidebar
  • Military purchase fields default to the maximum number you can buy
  • Must complete a captcha to execute Espionage operations
  • Ability to disable baseball team
  • Players online count added to sidebar
  • Will begin tracking Infrastructure Lost, as well as Money Looted
  • IRC Link on alliance page replaced by Discord Server link

 

This is mostly to serve as a heads-up for what may be coming, and to offer you a chance to jump in on the test server and try out these features for yourself. When implemented, I'll be enforcing a 5-day or so peace period where no one can declare new wars, and implementing these changes at the end of that when all existing wars have expired.

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I'm writing up a quick thread to give you all (the community) that does not use the test server a quick overview of what I've been working on on the test server. What we're likely to see in the next two-three weeks is a large war system update, along with a couple of other minor changes. Here's a quick overview of what's currently on the test server that I'd like to move live before December 20th.

 

  • Wars now have a system called 'resistance'. Each sides starts the war with 100 resistance, and resistance is reduced through every attack. When your opponent's resistance reaches 0, you take 25% of their money, 10% of each of their resources, and automatically destroys 10% of the infrastructure in each of their cities. They are sent to Beige, but for only 3 days. This is to add a more visual component to wars, and encourage people to want to win wars.
  • Tank casualties have been reduced by half in Ground Battles. This is to help make wars less expensive.
  • Sabotage operations (espionage) are no longer limited by improvement caps. You instead destroy between 2-15% of the target's units that you are sabotaging. This gives you a more effective way to kill aircraft aside from other aircraft.
  • Loot amounts are listed in Timelines.

Non-related war changes:

  • Read receipts added to messages
  • Link to Discord channel added to the sidebar

 

This is mostly to serve as a heads-up for what may be coming, and to offer you a chance to jump in on the test server and try out these features for yourself. When implemented, I'll be enforcing a 5-day or so peace period where no one can declare new wars, and implementing these changes at the end of that when all existing wars have expired.

 

 

I like the Dscord related change and the espionage one doesn't sound too bad either.

 

But almost all of the war-related ones are an absolute trainwreck imo, especially since missiles and nukes reduce resistance by a lot. Making missiles and nukes actually matter (+ giving an incentive to beiging) is just making the game simpler. I believe that, what you should be encouraged to do, is develop your traditional warfare skills. Like I've mentioned before, any muppet can lob missiles and nukes.

 

The beauty about this war system is that it rewards strategy and skill, making coordination absolutely crucial. With this change, good players trying to grind their opponents' military and infra consistently can easily be beiged by a missile/nuke lobbing scrub. Getting beiged in AA wars is awesome, don't get me wrong... But by increasing the benefits for players who beige (and really punishing the nation getting beiged), you're merely stupidifying the game, Sheepy.

 

Just my opinion anyways.

Edited by Insert Name Here
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I ran some numbers to consider for discussion; feel free to add on to them if you'd like. Here's Alex's chart:

spLZdeI.png

 
10 GA = 30 turns
 
1 navy + 9 GA = 31 turns
2 navy + 8 GA = 32 turns
3 navy + 6 GA = 30 turns
4 navy + 5 GA = 31 turns
5 navy + 3 GA = 29 turns
6 navy + 2 GA = 30 turns
7 navy + 1 GA = 31 turns
8 navy = 32 turns
 
1 airstrike + 9 GA = 31 turns
2 airstrike + 8 GA = 32 turns
5 airstrike + 4 GA = 32 turns
 
2 navy + 1 airstrike + 6 GA = 30 turns
1 navy + 3 airstrike + 5 GA = 31 turns
 
Observations:
-Navies are now far more important to have than before.
-Wars will be longer and far more costly than before, compounded even further with the fortify option.
-Raiders can now take 2 nukes instead of 1 before beiging. So logically rogues will be able to nuke twice before getting beiged as well.
-Nations are more incentivized to build up their militaries at update, even when they are getting rolled. That way an attacker who makes a mistake might actually get beiged first, despite winning the battle.
-The previous strategy of ZI during wars will be made far more frustrating. This has a flip side in that the losing side might be able to build up troops and fight back. But the flip side's flip side is that wars will take even longer.

-Overall, still pretty damn strategical, and I think coordination matters far more now. However, one can argue that this takes some fun out of the game, as people will spend more time growing warchests and be more hesitant to engage in wars, thus engaging in both less nation building and less war.

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I'm not certain that the fortify option is a good idea. It doesn't appear to be working in test server right now, but if that's used by nuke rogues they can get a total of four possible nukes off each war while investing very few MAP's in delaying their own defeat. This isn't really an issue on test server right now because accounts are so small and nukes aren't worth it yet, but on the very top end of the permanent server that could be potentially unbalancing. The status quo is that a nuke rogue can fire off 1 nuke before possibly being beiged. Raising it to 2 or 3 is may be worth considering but 4 is a lot.

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Any chance you can add the verification system you use for trading to spy operations?  OO scum have been rampantly abusing scripts to steal nukes the second theyre bought for the last few wars.

Isn't that against the rules.

XLL3z4T.gif

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Just questions: Each sides starts the war with 100 resistance, and resistance is reduced through every attack. When your opponent's resistance reaches 0, you take 25% of their money, 10% of each of their resources. Reduced through every attack, so in theory one could lose every attack that one mounts but still take stuff? Or are results of an attacks important too?  Do 10% of each resource include credits?

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Just questions: Each sides starts the war with 100 resistance, and resistance is reduced through every attack. When your opponent's resistance reaches 0, you take 25% of their money, 10% of each of their resources. Reduced through every attack, so in theory one could lose every attack that one mounts but still take stuff? Or are results of an attacks important too?  Do 10% of each resource include credits?

spLZdeI.png

 

Answer ^

Reduced through every attack, so in theory one could lose every attack that one mounts but still take stuff? Or are results of an attacks important too?

 

And of course credits aren't lootable.

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The chance someone can win a war by losing every attack is pretty slight unless that target is painfully inactive. If that target is completely inactive, you do have the odd situation wherein if someone with vastly less military were to attack them it could be more efficient to beige them with 6 missiles x 8 AP's(48 MAP's assuming no ID) than with 20 navy utter failures(80 MAP's - more than you get in a single war duration).

Edited by Auctor
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10% of each of their resources, and automatically destroys 10% of the infrastructure in each of their cities.

[*]Tank casualties have been reduced by half in Ground Battles. This is to help make wars less expensive.

Dang, this is absolutely brutal to the loser. On top of the damage you àlready do in just basic attacks. Now you're guranteed to destroy 10% more infra in EACH city upon beige. Also for the fact you're guranteed to lose 10% of ALL your resources, there's no more safe way to help rebuild. You lose, you're going down the drain for a long time.

 

Also wanting to point out thank goodness tank casualties are finally being looked at.

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I have a compromise system that I think could work.

 

How resistance and victory/loss should work

  • Instead of starting with 100 resistance, all fighters should start with 1000 resistance.
  • Instead of wars ending when resistance reaches zero, wars should end after the 3 day period.
  • The winner of the war is the person with the most remaining resistance.
  • The winner should receive loot, relative to the DIFFERENCE between the remaining resistances of each fighter. This keeps raiding a viable strategy by allowing people to still loot large amounts off of inactive or ill-prepared targets who aren't good at fighting.
  • Both players take infra damage. Infra damage is calculated based on the DIFFERENCE between the remaining resistances of each fighter. The wider the gap, the less damage the winner takes and the more damage the loser takes.
  • Normal attacks, including missiles and nukes, no longer do infra damage.
  • Missiles should be made targetable to hit certain units. Nukes should do a signficant amount of resistance damage, but should made less economically efficient as they are effectively a trump card.
  • Resistance should be expendable in order to do either more combat attacks or espionage operations.

How combat mechanics should work

  • ​Fortifying should be cumulative, the more successful fortifications in a row without interruption, the higher the fortification. (Capped of course)
  • Interrupting a Fortification requires an impressive ground or air triumph.
  • Ground control and air control should remain, but the advantages should be reduced dramatically.
  • To counter this, ground control and air control should be shared across fighters. Furthermore, the more people who gain air control and ground control, the greater the bonus. This creates more cooperative and coordinated combat.

How espionage should work

  • The current espionage system should be completely scrapped. It should add strategy to existing combat mechanics instead of emulating them but at a smaller and poorer scale.
  • Instead, espionage should play hand in hand with the new system.
  • Similar to war, espionage should also have "action points" which regenerate every turn and allow you to engage in various operations.
  • Operations should complement the current war system. For example:
  • Small espionage actions could include things like increasing your defense against ground or air attacks, so that their damage to your resistance is lowered, or increasing your damage to theirs. These buffs would be hidden, and allow you to specialize your units to be more effective in a certain area, or buff them evenly. Since the buffs would be hidden, an action to check what buffs your opponents have could help.
  • Larger espionage actions could include things like larger buffs, allowing you to catch your opponent unawares, or things like breaking your opponents air/ground control, blockade, or even gaining your own air/ground control.

 

 

Anyway this is just a rough idea, and some of the espionage changes are a bit more ambitious, but even without those I think the general concept is better and allows for more back and forth strategy between opponents.

Edited by Sketchy
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10% is probably too strong, but some amount of damage at the end to offset the idea you can't just hold a nation at war for the whole five days and hurl large scale bombing attacks on them over 5 days makes some sense. I think the absurd outcome of this particular group of updates could be that wars effectively last longer because you can't zero your opponent out as quickly.

 

In context, if you're losing and you don't have much left anyway, 10% down the drain isn't as bad as if you're winning, but the fortify/nuke strategy griefs your much larger and much more expensive infra amounts and you get slapped with 10% damage adding insult to injury.

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10% is probably too strong, but some amount of damage at the end to offset the idea you can't just hold a nation at war for the whole five days and hurl large scale bombing attacks on them over 5 days makes some sense. I think the absurd outcome of this particular group of updates could be that wars effectively last longer because you can't zero your opponent out as quickly.In context, if you're losing and you don't have much left anyway, 10% down the drain isn't as bad as if you're winning, but the fortify/nuke strategy griefs your much larger and much more expensive infra amounts and you get slapped with 10% damage adding insult to injury.

I do like what Sketchy posted about attacks, including nukes and missiles no longer doing infra damage. This means beiging is your only effective way to hurt your opponent. While at the same time looting their resources doesn't leave them in such a desolate wasteland, that wars wouldn't even be sought out. The 3 day war system is very appealing, since 5 days of constant infra bombing is by far the most boring way to war ever.

 

While yes it's harder to 0 your opponents military. It's also more damaging regardless, and simply promotes someone to preserve military and just nuke/missile to try to win wars.

 

Edit: But yeah 10% is disgustingly high.

Edited by Hooves
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I should clarify the system being tested currently does have a 5 day war duration, just makes it easier and more desirable to end it via beiging.

 

If after launching a nuke, you couldn't use the fortify option for that war again, you'd still up the number of nukes a nuke rogue could launch without them being able to easily launch 4. Whether it's desirable to be able to launch more nukes in a Samson Option scenario or not, that'd be Alex's call and not mine obviously.

 

As for espionage, if you're going to power up the effects, it probably makes sense to have the manpower stacks system for spies and only spies. It was definitely too overpowered for other military units and hilariously bugged for nukes and CM's, but being able to rebuy your full amount of spies at least once gives a defender a minor chance to make a comeback, as opposed to the current system where attackers can sextuple spy bang and it's goodnight Irene.

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using bots and scripts isnt against the rules, so long as a player is actually logging in and completing an action. Anti-nuke scripts are within the rules, as it just tells you when someone has built a nuke - it doesnt actually spy away the nuke itself. A player does that.

 

I assumed when he said "the second they are built" he meant an automated bot that did so. My bad.

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I should clarify the system being tested currently does have a 5 day war duration, just makes it easier and more desirable to end it via beiging.

 

If after launching a nuke, you couldn't use the fortify option for that war again, you'd still up the number of nukes a nuke rogue could launch without them being able to easily launch 4. Whether it's desirable to be able to launch more nukes in a Samson Option scenario or not, that'd be Alex's call and not mine obviously.

 

As for espionage, if you're going to power up the effects, it probably makes sense to have the manpower stacks system for spies and only spies. It was definitely too overpowered for other military units and hilariously bugged for nukes and CM's, but being able to rebuy your full amount of spies at least once gives a defender a minor chance to make a comeback, as opposed to the current system where attackers can sextuple spy bang and it's goodnight Irene.

 

I was thinking to complement the system I suggested above it could work like:

 

  • The cap for spies is increased to 150 or 200 with a CIA.
  • Instead of the old system of expending spies to do operations:
    • Spies would need to be "embedded" inside a nation.
    • Espionage would work similar to war, in that you need to declare an espionage attack on an individual, before you can use espionage operations again them. This would be silent.
    • The amount of espionage attacks would have no limit, since the power would be in the spies.
    • Embedding spies would cost Espionage Action points.
    • An action to hunt spies would allow nations to kill a % of all spies currently embedded in their nation.
    • Each spy would increase the % of succeeding an operation by 1%. Embedding 100 spies in a nation would give you a 100% success chance. Failure always results in your nation name being discovered.
    • Since you only would get 150 (or 200) spies, you would have to decide where and how many to send out to nations, and the more you send out, the more EAPS it would use do so.
    • Adversely, the more spies you have embedded in a nation, the lower the chance of succeeding in pulling them all back to use elsewhere. This could simply be an invert percentage, 99 spies = 1% etc.
Edited by Sketchy
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is my interpretation correct?

 

killing spies remains unchanged allowing for a complete dismantle of 20 to 25 days worth of spies in <2 days

you can now kill even more units with espionage attacks

there is no safe haven for cash storage anymore (coal, iron etc) aside from credits which have a redemption limit

when you get beiged, additional infrastructure is destroyed

military buying remains limited by the amount of infrastructure you have

beige time is only 3 days now, preventing enough time for a full military buildup if you were to have your entire military removed even with a double buy

 

as a fan of chaos - i love it

as a judge where this moves the balance of power in the game - it mechanically seems to create an insurmountable force to overcome to turn a large war barring large mistakes by the winning side and/or additional 3rd party forces coming in to help out. this statement is already true in the current war format so largely it seems like we are making a change just to make a change without addressing any of the real pitfalls of the current war system.

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What exactly were you hoping to achieve with this resistance?

 

from what i see the motivation is to make wars less expensive by reducing the time someone can be beat down with zero units with a concession that you now lose more value when you do lose a war

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