Unintended consequences

[Avruch]

This may not be a bug per se, but I doubt it was a fully intended scenario so lets discuss:

 

I'm fighting two TEst guys (Phiney and DrKourin). As things stand, both of them have zero or close to zero military of any kind. But because I don't have ships right now, Phiney (with zero troops, zero tanks, zero planes and 1 -3 ships) is fully on his way to defeating me by lowering my resistance.

 

How is it rational to have one nation with 250k troops, 25k tanks and hundreds of airplanes be defeated by a guy with 2 ships? Why do my ground attacks on him lower his resistance and his ship attacks on me lower my resistance but the two have no effect on each other? If I am completely whipping his ass in the air and on the ground, shouldn't that contribute something positive to my resistance? 

[Donald Trump]

This may not be a bug per se, but I doubt it was a fully intended scenario so lets discuss:

 

I'm fighting two TEst guys (Phiney and DrKourin). As things stand, both of them have zero or close to zero military of any kind. But because I don't have ships right now, Phiney (with zero troops, zero tanks, zero planes and 1 -3 ships) is fully on his way to defeating me by lowering my resistance.

 

How is it rational to have one nation with 250k troops, 25k tanks and hundreds of airplanes be defeated by a guy with 2 ships? Why do my ground attacks on him lower his resistance and his ship attacks on me lower my resistance but the two have no effect on each other? If I am completely whipping his ass in the air and on the ground, shouldn't that contribute something positive to my resistance? 

Realistically, planes should be able to bomb those ships. 

[Avruch]

Realistically, planes should be able to bomb those ships. 

 

Undoubtedly, but he can build ships in 2-3 increments forever... In this scenario, he started out with an advantage that pushed my resistance below his. I'm now comprehensively beating him because the advantage flipped to me, but I'm going to be forced to spend many MAPs on fortifying instead of continuing to dismantle him in detail. 

[seabasstion]

if we are talking about being rational or realistic one could argue it isn't realistic for someone to be blockaded with several hundred ships and expect to get their airplanes across that front unimpeded to do their airstrikes on tanks/soldiers/ships 

[EliteCanada]

This may not be a bug per se, but I doubt it was a fully intended scenario so lets discuss:

 

I'm fighting two TEst guys (Phiney and DrKourin). As things stand, both of them have zero or close to zero military of any kind. But because I don't have ships right now, Phiney (with zero troops, zero tanks, zero planes and 1 -3 ships) is fully on his way to defeating me by lowering my resistance.

 

How is it rational to have one nation with 250k troops, 25k tanks and hundreds of airplanes be defeated by a guy with 2 ships? Why do my ground attacks on him lower his resistance and his ship attacks on me lower my resistance but the two have no effect on each other? If I am completely whipping his ass in the air and on the ground, shouldn't that contribute something positive to my resistance? 

 

I think part of the point of this update was to make all units somewhat viable and have a spot in warfare. Why not just build 1 drydock and 1 ship per city. It's what I did to prevent that.

[Avruch]

if we are talking about being rational or realistic one could argue it isn't realistic for someone to be blockaded with several hundred ships and expect to get their airplanes across that front unimpeded to do their airstrikes on tanks/soldiers/ships 

 

Or to have someone with a thousand planes be blockaded by 1 or 2 ships. 

 

 

 

I think part of the point of this update was to make all units somewhat viable and have a spot in warfare. Why not just build 1 drydock and 1 ship per city. It's what I did to prevent that.

 

Sure - there are solutions, but they all also involve the substantial required use of fortify. I think the main point is that it doesn't make sense for two nations of vastly unequal power to have the same potential to demolish their opponents resistance. A solution might be to link the resistances in some way, or to repair resistance with IT attacks on an opponent, something like that. 

Edited December 29, 2016 by Avruch

[Bollocks]

This basically forces everyone to (try) and keep at least a smattering of ships on hand.

 

And yes, it's gamey. 

[Spooner]

Just build a few drydocks per city to avoid this problem. There's bigger problems with the war module than this issue, imo.

 

if we are talking about being rational or realistic one could argue it isn't realistic for someone to be blockaded with several hundred ships and expect to get their airplanes across that front unimpeded to do their airstrikes on tanks/soldiers/ships 

 

Just re-route them around the ships. Additionally, it would be easy to avoid 2 boats.

[seabasstion]

Or to have someone with a thousand planes be blockaded by 1 or 2 ships. 

 

i also agree with this point. which is why it is hard to code for realism in this respect. i was merely pointing to the other side of this situation where the game does not model a realistic behavior. i believe the game != realism argument has been had many times on this forum

[Alex]

This is intended - this was the buff to ships. Before no one used ships, these mechanics were intended to shift the meta game to get ships to be used more.

[seabasstion]

Just build a few drydocks per city to avoid this problem. There's bigger problems with the war module than this issue, imo.

 

 

Just re-route them around the ships. Additionally, it would be easy to avoid 2 boats.

 

yeah its definitely not good. i came a ball hair away from winning a few of my wars when i had no business doing so because of the 1-2 chip shots with ships. i also had my 250+ ship army with blockades on all 5 of my opponents destroyed because of this 'rerouting' behavior. im not saying it is a good war mechanic - i'm just saying it isn't realistic. since this report is based on things not being realistic i was merely presenting the counterpoint the other way

[Avruch]

i also agree with this point. which is why it is hard to code for realism in this respect. i was merely pointing to the other side of this situation where the game does not model a realistic behavior. i believe the game != realism argument has been had many times on this forum

 

It certainly has been made many times, mistakenly in my opinion, so I won't rehash it. For the internal logic of the game, it doesn't make sense for a nation with only 2 ships to have any viable path to defeat a fully built nation with everything but ships. Lets say the advantage swing happened towards the end of the round - Phiney and I were both pretty well built, smashing eachother, and then on day 4 Phiney got attacked and wiped clean. It would be fully possible - but ridiculous from the perspective of the games own logic - for him to still be able to beat me by getting "immense triumphs" against me with 2 ships. 

 

Before anyone else offers me advice on how to not lose, thanks, I've got it, I'm not asking for advice. 

 

 

 

This is intended - this was the buff to ships. Before no one used ships, these mechanics were intended to shift the meta game to get ships to be used more.

 

Alex, you can buff ships without making it possible to defeat someone in such a quixotic circumstance. Link ITs to a repair of a certain % or # of resistance points, and then the different weapons will all have a role to fill without allowing someone to have only one weapon and still win. 

Edited December 29, 2016 by Avruch

[Alex]

It certainly has been made many times, mistakenly in my opinion, so I won't rehash it. For the internal logic of the game, it doesn't make sense for a nation with only 2 ships to have any viable path to defeat a fully built nation with everything but ships. Lets say the advantage swing happened towards the end of the round - Phiney and I were both pretty well built, smashing eachother, and then on day 4 Phiney got attacked and wiped clean. It would be fully possible - but ridiculous from the perspective of the games own logic - for him to still be able to beat me by getting "immense triumphs" against me with 2 ships. 

 

Before anyone else offers me advice on how to not lose, thanks, I've got it, I'm not asking for advice. 

 

Resistance isn't a back-and-forth mechanic. Both sides have a 'resistance' to the enemy, and when your resistance reaches 0, you give up. Your resistance is based on your nation's willingness to keep fighting, and so regardless of the damage you're doing to the opponent, when you're suffering losses on any front, your resistance is reduced.

 

It's intended to be a race to defeat your opponent, and that's exactly how the mechanics have it set up to be.

[donsberger]

Except people will be much more willing to continue fighting if 780 people die compared to 36,000. That's like a few buildings worth of destruction compared to 20-25% of a city. (Based on 150k pop and 1,5000 infra and looking at phiney vs avruch war) 

[Auctor]

There should probably be some minimum number of units for the full resistance penalty to take effect. I get that navy trolling can help some people mess with the previous meta, but at the same time tiny air and tiny ground attacks that expend fewer resources while still being able to inflict the 10% penalty is not unlikely to lead to a scenario where constant raiding during "peace" times against unprepared opponents can be disproportionately profitable while still being difficult to rearm against. There also might be some value in limiting the effects of certain attacks based on the level of development a nation has but that's a whole nother ball game.

[Avruch]

Resistance isn't a back-and-forth mechanic. Both sides have a 'resistance' to the enemy, and when your resistance reaches 0, you give up. Your resistance is based on your nation's willingness to keep fighting, and so regardless of the damage you're doing to the opponent, when you're suffering losses on any front, your resistance is reduced.

 

It's intended to be a race to defeat your opponent, and that's exactly how the mechanics have it set up to be.

 

So the mechanics say that a defeat on your nation that destroys 5 infrastructure, and comes at the hand of 1 ship, is the demoralizing equivalent of being hit by 250 ships and losing whatever that kills, 800 infra? And your nations willingness to keep fighting will be completely wiped out, even if the enemy has one teeny tiny ship left and you are bombing their cities into dust.

 

Yep, makes perfect sense. Certainly more rational than a back and forth mechanic, because as we all know, morale is something that only ever moves in one direction and could never be influenced by rousing victories by deployed forces. 

Edited December 29, 2016 by Avruch

[Spooner]

I think perhaps the "easiest" solution here is to look at city's "natural defense". If I attack someone with 25 cities with one ship or plane that's an immense triumph. I suspect there should be a scaling effect based on the nation's population. If you want something easy:

 

-Needs 1 ship per city to get an IT   //   I.e. against a 20 city nation, needs at least 20 ships for an IT

-Needs at least 10 planes per city to get an IT   ///   I.e. against a 20 city nation, needs at least 200 airplanes for an IT

 

This preserves the balance of needing ships without the silly "cheese" strategies.

 

yeah its definitely not good. i came a ball hair away from winning a few of my wars when i had no business doing so because of the 1-2 chip shots with ships. i also had my 250+ ship army with blockades on all 5 of my opponents destroyed because of this 'rerouting' behavior. im not saying it is a good war mechanic - i'm just saying it isn't realistic. since this report is based on things not being realistic i was merely presenting the counterpoint the other way

 

Yeah, I noticed you got me dangerously close to beige :3

 

Trying to race your ships down with my airplanes was a hairy situation.

[Shiho Nishizumi]

The protential problem with such mechanic is that, how do you keep it constant? Because if, say, your enemy rebuilds infra, would that modify the formula, or would the formula only take into consideration the pre-war amount of infrastructure?

Edited December 29, 2016 by Shiho Nishizumi

[Alex]

So the mechanics say that a defeat on your nation that destroys 5 infrastructure, and comes at the hand of 1 ship, is the demoralizing equivalent of being hit by 250 ships and losing whatever that kills, 800 infra? And your nations willingness to keep fighting will be completely wiped out, even if the enemy has one teeny tiny ship left and you are bombing their cities into dust.

 

Yep, makes perfect sense. Certainly more rational than a back and forth mechanic, because as we all know, morale is something that only ever moves in one direction and could never be influenced by rousing victories by deployed forces. 

 

Hey, if your nation can't even muster a single ship to battle, that one or two ships your opponent has must look like some sort of crazy futuristic death machine. Sounds pretty demoralizing to me, knowing that your opponent can attack you mercilessly and you have no units to even defend against it

 

Resistance is fully intended NOT to be a back and forth mechanic. All that encourages is people to not fight back. Once you're ahead in the war, the opponent would just take more damage if attacking back increased their own resistance. So they wouldn't, and that would make wars not fun at all - once you lose the lead, you just stop fighting and wait to lose. I'd much rather have a race than those mechanics.

 

And when there are situations where you'd want to extend the war, you can. That's the point of the Fortify mechanic.

 

There's no bug here. Everything is working exactly as it's intended to. If you'd like to make a suggestion, go ahead, but this is not the forum for that.