Endless Fortification

[Felkey]

So as we all know if an inferior military opponent chooses to do nothing but fortify it is impossible to bring their resistance down to 0.

 

This poses several problems as the intent of this system was to force wars to end more quickly so that way attackers could not just air strike infra indefinitely. However, this system has simply switched the ability to drag out the war to the defender and has taken away the rewards for being a superior military force such as looting resources and treasures.

 

I do like the idea of a point system however, but with all do respect to you Alex, I think you went about it in reverse. Instead of having a resistance system there should be a point based victory system. In this system each type of attack, ground, air, naval, etc will give the attacker points based on strength of victory (phyric, moderate, immense) and losses by an attacker will give nothing (could possibly even lose points should you want to make that happen).

 

Instead of adding resistance and 10% casualties, a fortification if you wanted to keep it in play could cause increased casualties (say 15% or 20%) or increasing their defensive battle odds in some way, thus making it more difficult to achieve the higher levels of victories but not impossible to win the overall war. This way an inferior military force can still attempt attacks if they want, then fortify afterwards to make their odds a bit better against their opponent.

 

Thank you,

 

Felkey

[Sailor Jerry]

How cute.....your first post ever.....and you waste it on complaining about the war system. Instead of replying to one of the many threads that are currently out there already discussing this very issue, you decided to start your very own thread.....well I'm sure it will get addressed now.....and even fixed. Play the game a little more than 15 days before !@#$ing about the mechanics of it.

[Felkey]

How cute.....your first post ever.....and you waste it on complaining about the war system. Instead of replying to one of the many threads that are currently out there already discussing this very issue, you decided to start your very own thread.....well I'm sure it will get addressed now.....and even fixed. Play the game a little more than 15 days before !@#$ about the mechanics of it.

Oh hey a silly troll. There are multiple threads however, if you bothered to read the full statement instead of complaining about how long I've played the game, you would have noticed that instead of complaining I pointed out what I and others feel are legitimate flaws in the system and offered an actual suggestion of what could be done about it. As this is a different suggestion than what has been offered before, it should have a different thread and not get piggy backed onto another person's suggestion. If you don't like it offer actual constructive criticism instead being the actual whiner and complainer in this thread. 

 

Secondly, while I may be new to this game, that does not mean my opinion does not matter. Additionally, I have played other games such as this on and off for years and it is not as if the mechanics of this particular game are so overly complex that they need years or even months of study to understand. They are rather simple and straight forwards if you take a few minutes to think about what you are doing. So please, if you actually want to have a meaningful discussion, by all means, have it it, but otherwise, have a nice day.

[PigInZen]

I like the cut of this new guy's jib

[seabasstion]

So as we all know if an inferior military opponent chooses to do nothing but fortify it is impossible to bring their resistance down to 0.

 

This poses several problems as the intent of this system was to force wars to end more quickly so that way attackers could not just air strike infra indefinitely. However, this system has simply switched the ability to drag out the war to the defender and has taken away the rewards for being a superior military force such as looting resources and treasures.

 

i've looted almost 100 million since the war change. superior military force confirmed 

 

but seriously - i think we should do as this post says. afterall he does have 3 cities, has played the game for over 2 weeks and is in the most knowledgeable warfare alliance (if we are talking about knowing where the vacation button is)

[Felkey]

i've looted almost 100 million since the war change. superior military force confirmed 

 

but seriously - i think we should do as this post says. afterall he does have 3 cities, has played the game for over 2 weeks and is in the most knowledgeable warfare alliance (if we are talking about knowing where the vacation button is)

You'll notice I said looting resources, you know the fun stuff you can't really get if your opponent doesn't fight back and does nothing but fortify. Also, 100m is relative depending on size of nation, same as in any game.

 

And I'm not so sure pissing off everyone to the point where most of the world is rolling you would be considered knowledgeable either... No, that's definitely not the right word...

.

Edited January 4, 2017 by Felkey

[Thalmor]

And I'm not so sure pissing off everyone to the point where most of the world is rolling you would be considered knowledgeable either... No, that's definitely not the right word...

 

Look at this hot shit! 15 days old and he knows the ins and outs of this war like the back of his hand! Time to pack it up and go home, guys, we've been bested!

[Felkey]

Look at this hot shit! 15 days old and he knows the ins and outs of this war like the back of his hand! Time to pack it up and go home, guys, we've been bested!

I like how those complaining about the size and age of my nation are TEst members so far (the ones who currently have the most to gain under the current system) When you have a legitimate complaint please make it.

 

I also like how you assume that a browser based game is so complicated it can't be understood to a reasonable degree in a couple days.

 

And not making enemies of the world isn't an in or out, just common sense and restraint.

[LordRahl2]

Ignore the TESTies they are a bit overflowing with salt at the moment.

[Yui]

So.... Felkey came to me with this idea last night. It was well thought out and suggested some possible changes that might make something work better. I could have posted this myself and called it my own and that might have been 'better' but I wanted Felkey to post it as it was his idea and he'd be able to reply to any questions/follow-ups etc. Nice to know that new people get attacked for suggesting something. Duly noted. 

Edited January 4, 2017 by Yui

[Odin]

So.... Felkey came to me with this idea last night. It was well thought out and suggested some possible changes that might make something work better. I could have posted this myself and called it my own and that might have been 'better' but I wanted Felkey to post it as it was his idea and he'd be able to reply to any questions/follow-ups etc. Nice to know that new people get attacked for suggesting something. Duly noted. 

 

It's like the current war system. Once it's in there will be flaws and people complaining again.

Nevertheless, he (Felkey) is right. 

Especially if you attack for the loot (as Pirate especially), constant fortifying makes it impossible. And the Treasure system now got totally useless.

 

I think, maybe each follow-up fortify should up one less Resistance until one attack was carried out (So 10 consecutively fortifies should end up with +1 resistance).

Might add some tactics again to decide when to fortify and when to do an attack again, to get max fortify again.

[seabasstion]

You'll notice I said looting resources, you know the fun stuff you can't really get if your opponent doesn't fight back and does nothing but fortify. Also, 100m is relative depending on size of nation, same as in any game.

 

And I'm not so sure pissing off everyone to the point where most of the world is rolling you would be considered knowledgeable either... No, that's definitely not the right word...

.

Wow a master of the mechanics and foreign affairs. I'm sure those skills will be put to great use when you have all of your allies continually doing your fighting for you

[seabasstion]

With the 100k loot floor this suggestion would have extremely little impact in doing what fortification is attempting to do.

 

Sure go ahead and boost casualties. When you only have enough money to buy 2 ships after the wave of ground assaults come in you still won't have any recourse to fight back.

 

So on the surface, yes it is a good suggestion. But when coupled with other factors (such as the Looting limit) it would still remain an ineffective solution and would only further the attackers cause. This suggestion in practice wouldn't do what it's attempting to do, and I think it is pretty easy to see why when you have a better understanding than the surface layer of the overall war mechanic and what Alex's motives are.

 

This update hurts raiders. People looking for alliance wars or alliance defending (which I'm guessing what this guy is doing with his grand total of 20 maps spent). You would get the benefit of beating your opponent without a fight back for 5 days while leaving them unbeiged for the next round of fighting to immediately follow. Raiding can still happen via inactive raids but you would now have the added benefit (in Alex's point of view) where younger nations in smaller alliances can now ride out a raid with fortification and not lose their stash if they want. They are basically safer as raiding active people is much much less successful. As far as I'm aware Alex is looking to retain players. This could be a way to help that.

 

The current system basically yields a result where it only makes sense to raid inactive nations while still allowing for global alliance warfare to perma roll people.

 

Yes you get to a point where this beat down will cost more money than the damage you are inflicting. If the goal is to inflict damage though (to war) this shouldn't bother you. This effectively decouples raiding from warring and boosts your strength if you actually show up.

 

I do yield that treasures are problematic. Perhaps a solution for that is if you have a treasure you can't fortify. But treasures would need to be transferable in that event as its not exactly fair to someone that would rather be rid of the threat.

Edited January 4, 2017 by seabasstion

[Felkey]

"This is to add a more visual component to wars, and encourage people to want to win wars."

 

This is from the very first bullet point in the changelog. Win wars. For the side with an advantage it encourages it but for someone who is on the disadvantaged end it encourages them to do otherwise and gives them the ability to drag it out while keeping their resources in tact.

 

If someone wants to keep their cash safe as well they can simply put it in the resource market and sell as needed so that is safe as well. Sure infra WI burn but with resources that are perfectly safe, it can be bought back if you keep a good stockpile.

 

The problem with fortifying is you can barely dent it. If someone did 3 naval attacks a day and their opponent just fortified 4 times they net a grand total of 2.

 

If the point is to discourage raids of actives it has some level of success but all it does is switch the priority to inactives. Leaving an alliance bank essentially undefended as the inactive won't be the one fortifying so it still affects more than just inactives.

 

That's why I think it would be interesting to explore the idea of limiting fortification to casualties only but causing more casualties over all. Or as Odin suggested a regressing level of effectiveness, so that if some spams fortify they will still lose in the long run. That way it can still be useful when used properly but so it's not a spam tool.

 

If rebuying is an issue then you could always play with those caps as well. I believe someone in another thread said many of this game's mechanics/caps were designed for the 5-7 city range so why not rethink them.

[seabasstion]

i think you have a misunderstanding which may change your opinion.

 

 

If someone wants to keep their cash safe as well they can simply put it in the resource market and sell as needed so that is safe as well. Sure infra WI burn but with resources that are perfectly safe, it can be bought back if you keep a good stockpile.

 

this isn't true. under the old system - yes. uranium, coal, iron, lead, bauxite, oil were immune from looting. however in the new system it is NOT immune (shout out to mage)

 

the issue with the old system was nobody would 'win' wars. they would just perform a ton of overpowered air attacks (which did not loot the opponent) doing as much destruction as possible without ever giving the losing side a loss which sent them to beige and theoretically time to recover and fight back (5 days whenever a beige happened). i think what he meant by 'winning' wars was incentivizing them to go to beige to get this recovery time for a comeback, not simply do a one dimensional air attack every time. under the old system it was very easy to get perma rolled with the bottleneck being the downdeclare range

 

https://politicsandwar.com/forums/index.php?/topic/17829-12162016-coming-winter-update/?p=297371

 

alex posted this a few weeks after the 'winning wars' quote you referenced. he directly stated his goals are to improve player retention. with your suggestions in mind what i think it would do is it would blend the two systems together working against this ideology. you would be able to do maximum damage with air AND get a large amount of loot. the player would be receiving the maximum amount of damage (via planes or ships), and with the occasional ground attack that could steal an entire day's worth of income if youre in the right score range you'll be put at 100k cash, have your infrastructure lowered to the point where you can no longer buy maximum units (not that you could buy maximum units to begin with), have 10% of your infrastructure removed when beiged (furthering this infra cap), have a large sum of your cash and warchest stolen as well, and only 2 days of beige to recover. the only way you would be able to buy back to full strength would be if you had 3 people beige you simultaneously as it takes six full days to build up your planes (the dominant unit in this game). however youre probably strapped for cash as its now been stolen. youre probably not at a high enough infrastructure (it burns really quickly in this game) for max units. and now you've had ALL of your warchest stolen, not just the war materials. your post above suggests that there is now a 'safe' resource to invest in. there is not.

 

there would literally be zero safe haven for any form of wealth aside from credits which have a redemption limit. additionally if youre blockaded you couldnt trade out your resources anyway so it wouldn't even matter. ships are much more valuable in this way system so blockades will be a very common thing. it would take the stars aligning for a comeback to happen since the buy times to full military take so long, and are so expensive once you realistically get to 50% or so of your opponents military (which happens pretty much in the initial blitz of an attack).

 

i get what youre trying to suggest. it isn't realistic/sensible that someone could just fortify endlessly and prevent a beiging. but there should be some form of limiter allowing a losing nation to come back or at least attempt a comeback. in the current system (even with fortifying) there is no realistic chance of a comeback barring a huge enemy blunder like not having enough gas or munitions once you are in a 2v1 or 3v1 type scenario. the math just doesn't support it. ive brought this up for well over a year now (and i think the post youre talking about is one where i casually mention that the math worked for like 5 cities but not 15 i did a few days ago)

 

so if the end goal is to retain players (which is what his goal should be as increased number of players should yield an increase in credit purchases) than enabling a system where not only do nations get bombarded into zero infrastructure but the people doing it also get paid handsomely isn't a very sustainable system in my opinion. the incentive to perma roll people should be due to personal reasons not financial. and what you are suggesting is giving a financial reason to perma roll people. if that happens you will have the war profiteers come in and farm not only the inactives (which is what the current system is like) but also the actives once the dust settles and one side 'wins' the game as there would be no feasible way for them to come back. i could envision farming active players would serve to drive people out of this game as people typically dont like seeing years worth of works evaporate in a week.

 

there have already been a number of changes alex has made to prevent this 'active' player type farming by people in positions of heavy superiority. these were primarily by people that played in an atypical way that put them in a vast and uniquely superior niche. your tweak of the new war system would basically ensure someone gets not only max damage but also stolen from a large amount. at least with this system there is the tradeoff - they can fortify and see their infrastructure burn as long as their aggressors wish, or they could take the beige and attempt to recoup. with your version, once someone is beaten down, there is literally no reason to fortify if the beige is inevitable. all it would do is allow for more of the infrastructure to be destroyed before the beige happens making the smart thing to do is to not do anything (except hope someone comes in to bail you out i guess) and get to beige as quickly as possible. that or go to vacation mode

 

 

i wrote a lot more but im starting to digress so ill just cut myself off now

[Tywin Lannister]

Makes fortification more of a useless feature then. The % increase in casualties is barely worth it, doesn't really make a difference. No one will use fortify if it actually doesn't save you beige.

 

I mean it's a trade-off between eating more damage in infra against losing resources. Seems okay to me as it is. 

[Sailor Jerry]

Makes fortification more of a useless feature then. The % increase in casualties is barely worth it, doesn't really make a difference. No one will use fortify if it actually doesn't save you beige.

 

I mean it's a trade-off between eating more damage in infra against losing resources. Seems okay to me as it is. 

Once Infra gets knocked down to a certain point, it's less expensive to rebuild......those resource prices are fairly stable unless there's a big war going on.  I can also supplement my rebuilding funds by selling some of stuff on the market after the wars are over.  You build up.... you get knocked down.....you build up again.....it's a vicious circle really. 

[Felkey]

Makes fortification more of a useless feature then. The % increase in casualties is barely worth it, doesn't really make a difference. No one will use fortify if it actually doesn't save you beige.

 

I mean it's a trade-off between eating more damage in infra against losing resources. Seems okay to me as it is.

 

What about the regressive effectiveness of fortify that Odin suggested? Seems like a good idea to look into. It could still prevent beige in a closish fight but not if just spammed from early on. Preventing beige when used strategically is fine but simply choosing "I don't want to go to beige" seems too powerful to me. Could they also cap the number of uses per day like they do with spy ops?

[Felkey]

i think you have a misunderstanding which may change your opinion.

 

 

this isn't true. under the old system - yes. uranium, coal, iron, lead, bauxite, oil were immune from looting. however in the new system it is NOT immune (shout out to mage)

 

the issue with the old system was nobody would 'win' wars. they would just perform a ton of overpowered air attacks (which did not loot the opponent) doing as much destruction as possible without ever giving the losing side a loss which sent them to beige and theoretically time to recover and fight back (5 days whenever a beige happened). i think what he meant by 'winning' wars was incentivizing them to go to beige to get this recovery time for a comeback, not simply do a one dimensional air attack every time. under the old system it was very easy to get perma rolled with the bottleneck being the downdeclare range

 

https://politicsandwar.com/forums/index.php?/topic/17829-12162016-coming-winter-update/?p=297371

 

alex posted this a few weeks after the 'winning wars' quote you referenced. he directly stated his goals are to improve player retention. with your suggestions in mind what i think it would do is it would blend the two systems together working against this ideology. you would be able to do maximum damage with air AND get a large amount of loot. the player would be receiving the maximum amount of damage (via planes or ships), and with the occasional ground attack that could steal an entire day's worth of income if youre in the right score range you'll be put at 100k cash, have your infrastructure lowered to the point where you can no longer buy maximum units (not that you could buy maximum units to begin with), have 10% of your infrastructure removed when beiged (furthering this infra cap), have a large sum of your cash and warchest stolen as well, and only 2 days of beige to recover. the only way you would be able to buy back to full strength would be if you had 3 people beige you simultaneously as it takes six full days to build up your planes (the dominant unit in this game). however youre probably strapped for cash as its now been stolen. youre probably not at a high enough infrastructure (it burns really quickly in this game) for max units. and now you've had ALL of your warchest stolen, not just the war materials. your post above suggests that there is now a 'safe' resource to invest in. there is not.

 

there would literally be zero safe haven for any form of wealth aside from credits which have a redemption limit. additionally if youre blockaded you couldnt trade out your resources anyway so it wouldn't even matter. ships are much more valuable in this way system so blockades will be a very common thing. it would take the stars aligning for a comeback to happen since the buy times to full military take so long, and are so expensive once you realistically get to 50% or so of your opponents military (which happens pretty much in the initial blitz of an attack).

 

i get what youre trying to suggest. it isn't realistic/sensible that someone could just fortify endlessly and prevent a beiging. but there should be some form of limiter allowing a losing nation to come back or at least attempt a comeback. in the current system (even with fortifying) there is no realistic chance of a comeback barring a huge enemy blunder like not having enough gas or munitions once you are in a 2v1 or 3v1 type scenario. the math just doesn't support it. ive brought this up for well over a year now (and i think the post youre talking about is one where i casually mention that the math worked for like 5 cities but not 15 i did a few days ago)

 

so if the end goal is to retain players (which is what his goal should be as increased number of players should yield an increase in credit purchases) than enabling a system where not only do nations get bombarded into zero infrastructure but the people doing it also get paid handsomely isn't a very sustainable system in my opinion. the incentive to perma roll people should be due to personal reasons not financial. and what you are suggesting is giving a financial reason to perma roll people. if that happens you will have the war profiteers come in and farm not only the inactives (which is what the current system is like) but also the actives once the dust settles and one side 'wins' the game as there would be no feasible way for them to come back. i could envision farming active players would serve to drive people out of this game as people typically dont like seeing years worth of works evaporate in a week.

 

there have already been a number of changes alex has made to prevent this 'active' player type farming by people in positions of heavy superiority. these were primarily by people that played in an atypical way that put them in a vast and uniquely superior niche. your tweak of the new war system would basically ensure someone gets not only max damage but also stolen from a large amount. at least with this system there is the tradeoff - they can fortify and see their infrastructure burn as long as their aggressors wish, or they could take the beige and attempt to recoup. with your version, once someone is beaten down, there is literally no reason to fortify if the beige is inevitable. all it would do is allow for more of the infrastructure to be destroyed before the beige happens making the smart thing to do is to not do anything (except hope someone comes in to bail you out i guess) and get to beige as quickly as possible. that or go to vacation mode

 

 

i wrote a lot more but im starting to digress so ill just cut myself off now

I know you can get looted at the end if you go to beige but what I meant was a scenario they use the fortify to prevent beige in order to protect their resources and by extension cash.

 

I'm not really sure this fixes the perma roll though as a defender now chooses to keep themselves out of beige so they don't lose resources but they still get ground down so it's possible to hold someone in a state of constant warfare. I mean if I was attacking endlessly and not giving an opponent a chance to breathe, I would make peace contingent on them surrendering the resources they have denied me as reparations.

 

I do like what Odin suggested about regressive effectiveness though. Could we explore that more? That way it can still prevent beige if used strategically but not if used as a spam tool. 

[Tywin Lannister]

What about the regressive effectiveness of fortify that Odin suggested? Seems like a good idea to look into. It could still prevent beige in a closish fight but not if just spammed from early on. Preventing beige when used strategically is fine but simply choosing "I don't want to go to beige" seems too powerful to me. Could they also cap the number of uses per day like they do with spy ops?

 

Perhaps it can be looked into, but the thing is that fortify is only only helpful if it actually gets you away from beige. Otherwise, it's just a way to literally eat more damage for the most part. Wouldn't actually be a proper element in-game then.

 

Also, secondly, you could always ground attack them to get any cash they have on hand. Usually wars used to stop at 6 GAs, but now you can GA as much as you want and get cash off them. 

 

And finally, as far as piracy is concerned here, majority of the people who came online always and always used to take their money/resources out of account and stash them away. People didn't get shit anyway. Right now people just aren't stashing things since they aren't getting beiged, in real terms, there is actually no loss. 

[seabasstion]

 

 

I'm not really sure this fixes the perma roll though as a defender now chooses to keep themselves out of beige so they don't lose resources but they still get ground down so it's possible to hold someone in a state of constant warfare.

 

yes and that is why this system (somewhat) works. it at least gives the person on the losing side a chance to determine their fate slightly. a chance to potentially mount a strategic comeback in the next rounds. your system where the attackers still get to do the highest output of damage while simultaneously looting at the end (the one that earns the most) is just giving more power to an already overpowered aggressive attack. i would be saying these exact same things if i were winning wars. dogpiles arent as fun as a good balanced challenge. what youre suggesting promotes more dogpiling.

[seabasstion]

Perhaps it can be looked into, but the thing is that fortify is only only helpful if it actually gets you away from beige.

 

there are only a couple scenarios i can think of where it might be strategically useful

 

1) right at war start. fortify right away then do an air attack right at update (for the increased unit loss)

2) fortifying to reach a new day to do a double buy and potentially mount a counter

3) it is near the end of the war and your opponent is only doing ground/air attacks and the resistance works out where you can beige them later. say youre at 12 resistance and they are at 14. they have 3 map and you have 2 map. at the start of the next turn im spamming to fortify so when that air attack comes in im at 12 + 10 - 12 = 10. im now at 14. well now that i start to write it out i guess they would just result in a fortifying loop. still i think there is potential there even if i dont get the exact conditions for it to be vital to turning a war.

 

to these points though - 1 and 2 are nearly negated in a 2v1 or 3v1 since damage is still so high by air in this game it wouldn't matter. when more than  days worth of buying is destroyed in a single attack and there are mutliple attacks per day it will never regress back to a balanced fight (barring outside intereference or with the new addition of the spy damage). do we even know how much extra damage they are receiving? you have to remember that 3 map spent on fortifying is 3map spent not attacking. if the net loss favors attacking yourself compared to fortifying and waiting on them attacking than it pretty much doesn't have a place here.

 

meaning if i fortify and lose net 200 tanks compared to using the maps to attack and lost a net 100 tanks it would make sense to just attack and not fortify. i dont have enough datapoints on this yet though to know what the case is but early results seem to suggest that fortification isn't worth it in this scenario

 

for 3 - i think these cases would be few and far between. i think these type of cases are much more likely to happen by someone willing to wake up to a 3am alarm while the other person is not.

 

 

so i think you are right tywin - fortifying strategically outside of simply avoiding beige is difficult to imagine. 99% of its value comes from the ability to avoid beige. i think there might be a discussion in forcing the defender to make that decision sooner than later to fortify spam (meaning they are only worth like 5 points each every time), but to make beige a mathematical impossibility i feel would be a very poor decision to make

[Ogaden]

I don't get people man, when the beige from all attack types was put in, people complained about them not being able to infra bomb for 5 days.  Now, when people are deliberately allowing for infra bombing for 5 days via fortifying, people complain about that too.

[Sailor Jerry]

I don't get people man, when the beige from all attack types was put in, people complained about them not being able to infra bomb for 5 days.  Now, when people are deliberately allowing for infra bombing for 5 days via fortifying, people complain about that too.

It's not the being able to Infra bomb for 5 days that has their thongs on backwards, it's the fact that if someone fortifies the whole war and war ends up as "Expired" and not a "Victory", they're not able to loot from them or their alliance bank. Sure Infra bombing can be fun and all, but if there is no payday at the end, the attacking person has really done nothing besides wasting their own resouces in the way of elevated maintenance costs for being at war and the ammo and gas they use.

[James II]

 oops

Edited January 7, 2017 by James II