Re: Insta-buying 5 cities

[Holton]

The bolded piece is the actual suggestion.

 

One thing that makes PnW great is the fact that age isn't the primary determinant factor in strength. A big problem in Cybernations was that nations who had a multi-year head start on tech buying would literally never be caught or were so far ahead it was infeasible to the point of inanity.

 

Now obviously if you're old you hypothetically could have accumulated resources and money that give you an advantage over new nations and I think this is fair. Otherwise there's no point in long-term time investment.

 

 

One thing I really like is the removal of the city timer for cities 2-5. That is an absolutely great idea and I think it will go a long way in enabling new members of the community to join and actually be relevant whereas it would've taken 30 days minimum to get that far.

 

Now this is just a thought to take it a step further and obviously has some initial problems but the rough concept is this:

 

Rather than removing the timer for the first 5 cities, code in a similar setting that follows the average city count of the community and rounds it to the nearest integer. So while the game grows the ability to jump right in continues to grow with it.

 

This follows the logic set forth by the 5 cities rule in multiple ways. It encourages new members to join alliances (the lifeblood of these games) in order to accelerate growth. It allows new members of the community to jump into the fray without taking away the edge for the upper echelons of the game (ie - you can't insta-buy up to the largest nation in the game).

 

Obviously the biggest problem right now is that more than half the game has 1 or 2 cities so the average might need to be taken from the top 50-60% instead of the entire game.

[Kastor]

I disagree, that would allow players to join in during a war and completely change the outcome.

[Donald Trump]

Rather than removing the timer for the first 5 cities, code in a similar setting that follows the average city count of the community and rounds it to the nearest integer. So while the game grows the ability to jump right in continues to grow with it.

Why average count? If lots of new players are joining then it'll distort the limit down to the ground, which is probbaly the worst time to do it at.

 

Work on : Nation With The Most Cities / 6 

 

Currently, that's 30. But it'll mean it stays at the same level as we go along. 

 

Or just remove it in total. That works as well. 

[vonnorman]

Nah, with solid funding from an alliance, a nation can buy credits along with citys and get around the timers quite easily

Edited March 6, 2017 by vonnorman

[Holton]

I disagree, that would allow players to join in during a war and completely change the outcome.

 

Arguably, an influx of new players large enough to influence the outcome of a major war would number in the hundreds. That'd be good for PnW.

 

But this suggestion would only allow people to come in and join the fray under certain conditions that I would argue could not sway the outcome of a war.

 

 

1. They can only build to a certain limit that isn't anywhere close to the upper or middle tiers by definition of the formula I'm (at least in theory) proposing.

 

2. In order to effectively fight immediately after creation they would need complete funding from other nations or likely an alliance. Multiply that funding out by the number it would take to influence a war... And I think your argument begins to fall apart fairly quickly.

 

It would simply take too many newly created nations to affect a war's outcome to be a realistic stopping factor to this suggestion and it would also be prohibitively expensive at those numbers even if they did all influx in.

 

Why average count? If lots of new players are joining then it'll distort the limit down to the ground, which is probbaly the worst time to do it at.

 

Work on : Nation With The Most Cities / 6 

 

Currently, that's 30. But it'll mean it stays at the same level as we go along. 

 

Or just remove it in total. That works as well. 

 

While that is arguably one formula we could use as a "new players can immediately get involved" mechanic, I feel like relying on only one nation for these metrics would be overly-exploitable in time or end up creating a weird metric.

 

I do like the thought of narrowing down the margins though. Somewhere around 3000/5000 nations right now are below 100 score, so obviously a blank average wouldn't effectively allow the active new playerbase to accelerate their growth to match older players.

 

Nah, with solid funding from an alliance, a nation can buy credits along with citys and get around the timers quite easily

 

Well Sheepy has already shown interest in adjusting his game to allow for new players to become involved more quickly. I feel like credits are a murky way of saying "pay to win / pay to catch up" and that violates the spirit of a free web-based game.

 

I don't think allowing new players to jump into a reasonably viable range should be something you need to spend actual money on - or go through the efforts of waiting for enough credits to come onto the market etc.

[Donald Trump]

While that is arguably one formula we could use as a "new players can immediately get involved" mechanic, I feel like relying on only one nation for these metrics would be overly-exploitable in time or end up creating a weird metric.

How would it be exploitable? Just do it as a value that can only go up.

[Shakyr]

(Total Cities for Nations over x days old) / (Number of Nations over x days old)

Where x is say 180 days (6 months), long enough to have an 'impact' on the world. This would remove all newer nations from the equation and hopefully lead to a gradual rise in the limit.

 

Note: I was too lazy to actually check what the average would be, so 180 days could be too high or too low.

[Donald Trump]

(Total Cities for Nations over x days old) / (Number of Nations over x days old)

Where x is say 180 days (6 months), long enough to have an 'impact' on the world. This would remove all newer nations from the equation and hopefully lead to a gradual rise in the limit.

 

Note: I was too lazy to actually check what the average would be, so 180 days could be too high or too low.

 

Might as well remove the limit all together then if we use that formula

[Yang]

I disagree. It discourages newbies from joining alliances who are established enough to give starter cash. The larger starting cash now is a resource drain that prevents inflation.