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Additional Limits to War Range


superfalconpunch
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   It's no secret that some certain alliances (a few in particular) have been abusing the Nation Score to attack low power players and then absolutely destroy them with insane military. I'd be interested in coining this term "Score Scraping" or maybe something more clear if you can think of it. Players essentially exploit just how much military affects your power against how little cities do to declare against astronomically weaker opponents and become completely undefeatable amidst their raid.

 

   I thereby suggest a new system to COMPLIMENT (NOT replace) our current war system that limits declarations by city count, thus ensuring both nations are on a notably more level playing field. The reason this would work is because, quite frankly, your city count is 70% of the battle; more cities, more troops. By limiting players to only be able to declare within 67% or higher of their city count, we would be able to effectively shut down these Score Scraping players without affecting the game as a whole too greatly. There's still no upper limit to attacking players with MORE cities than you, though, so that's not prevented in any way.

   One complaint I quite genuinely predict is that this would potentially limit the war range for some players (though I doubt it would actually become an issue). Just in case that actually does become an issue rivaling my nation's habit of running out of food, I would then suggest loosening the score range of nations you can attack within your city range. I'm thinking something along the lines of a 50-60% bottom range for nation score could easily balance it all out.

   Any thoughts, suggestions on making this better? Do you think Score Scraping isn't all it's cracked up to be? Am I just full of s#!7 and need to delete my nation? Feel free to discuss it all below...

Edited by superfalconpunch
Removed specific linking to any alliances, per request.
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What you see as abuse of the war system, I see as making use of the war system. It takes a good deal of restraint and skill to be an effective, dedicated raider. While I certainly want to punch certain folks in their collective throat from time to time, raiding in the current system provides a viable long-term alternative to the traditional grind and grow play style. Additionally, the looming threat of raids provides an incentive for new nations to coordinate with other players in an alliance and then, in turn, gives that alliance another way to get members involved.

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So you...

A. Think it's fair that someone who can suddenly buy 300,000 soldiers and 12,500 tanks can declare on someone who is able to draft less than half that

B. Believe that low tier players won't raid other low tier players

Did I catch that clearly?

1 hour ago, Charlie Traveler said:

What you see as abuse of the war system, I see as making use of the war system. It takes a good deal of restraint and skill to be an effective, dedicated raider. While I certainly want to punch certain folks in their collective throat from time to time, raiding in the current system provides a viable long-term alternative to the traditional grind and grow play style. Additionally, the looming threat of raids provides an incentive for new nations to coordinate with other players in an alliance and then, in turn, gives that alliance another way to get members involved.

 

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Let's be real, no one who is so low that they can declare on people half their size has the capability to buy 300k soldiers and 12.5k tanks at double buy. Plus, only a 30 city nation with enough population can build that much at double buy, so that's kind of an exaggeration.

There are only two foreseeable scenarios where I can see your complaints being applied, with pirates and during global war when members have been rolled so thoroughly that they have to declare on smaller nations in order to have a chance.

With the first scenario, pirates will generally declare on you if you have some weak point in your military. If your minimum military requirements suck or you just aren't building up to them, then that's why pirates have such an easy time double buying. And most of the time, the nation's warchest will suck, so pirates don't even have an incentive to double buy most of the time. And if your warchest requirements are worth double buying for, well, then you should stop being overconfident and take measures to deter a double buy from happening.

With the second scenario, then any change you're proposing suddenly makes it so that losing nations are given less of a chance to fight back, which just makes war all the more boring. I for one don't want wars to just end in curbstomps in one or two rounds, and although the current war system isn't perfect either (see: 3 months of pain) this system wouldn't make it better.

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This allows people to beat people down, then beat them down again since losing doesn't push you out of their range.

War is a cooperative effort, smaller players might lack the 1 to 1 advantage over larger players, but they have the advantage of updeclare which is far more dangerous in the right circumstances and can allow them to outnumber a larger nation. Not to mention you have to shave units which costs money and fighting power to attack people.

If you are basing your entire view of what the war system should be on how a 1v1 plays out than I think you are missing the point.

Leave the war system alone, don't need to give any reasons for it get broken again. Its balanced fine.

 

 

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37 minutes ago, Sketchy said:

This allows people to beat people down, then beat them down again since losing doesn't push you out of their range.

War is a cooperative effort, smaller players might lack the 1 to 1 advantage over larger players, but they have the advantage of updeclare which is far more dangerous in the right circumstances and can allow them to outnumber a larger nation. Not to mention you have to shave units which costs money and fighting power to attack people.

If you are basing your entire view of what the war system should be on how a 1v1 plays out than I think you are missing the point.

Leave the war system alone, don't need to give any reasons for it get broken again. Its balanced fine.

 

 

Updeclaring is still a thing and not being removed in any way via my suggestion. I ONLY asked for a LOWER city limit, not an upper one too. A 20 city nation can still be declared on by one with 9, just not the other way around. I also never suggested any sort of removal of the Nation Score system, so yes, it WOULD push you out of range if you took enough damage. Lastly I never implied it was solely a 1vs1 scenario, because in the end one player with 20 cities will easily crush three players with 10 each.

 

2 hours ago, hidude45454 said:

Let's be real, no one who is so low that they can declare on people half their size has the capability to buy 300k soldiers and 12.5k tanks at double buy. Plus, only a 30 city nation with enough population can build that much at double buy, so that's kind of an exaggeration.

There are only two foreseeable scenarios where I can see your complaints being applied, with pirates and during global war when members have been rolled so thoroughly that they have to declare on smaller nations in order to have a chance.

With the first scenario, pirates will generally declare on you if you have some weak point in your military. If your minimum military requirements suck or you just aren't building up to them, then that's why pirates have such an easy time double buying. And most of the time, the nation's warchest will suck, so pirates don't even have an incentive to double buy most of the time. And if your warchest requirements are worth double buying for, well, then you should stop being overconfident and take measures to deter a double buy from happening.

With the second scenario, then any change you're proposing suddenly makes it so that losing nations are given less of a chance to fight back, which just makes war all the more boring. I for one don't want wars to just end in curbstomps in one or two rounds, and although the current war system isn't perfect either (see: 3 months of pain) this system wouldn't make it better.

You're right, I did really screw up my calculations there...should've been more along the lines of 20 cities with propaganda and max military hiring over 100k soldiers and 6000 tanks at once. Either way, still ridiculous for someone with a low city count to even hope to counter.

As far as pirates go, I do see where you're coming from, but pirates get countered to make up for those weaknesses if you're in just about any alliance. If a player isn't maintaining a strong military that's on them, of course, but if they ARE holding their maximum military and suddenly this player declares on them, double buys to 200,000+ soldiers and a whopping 12000 tanks, and however many planes and ships, then that's completely unfair if they physically can't counter it. What little standing military they do have gets blown away instantly and they have no choice but to turtle and plea for help.

 As far as after an alliance war goes...I didn't consider that, and it's actually a great counterpoint. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I suppose that player would have to use the beige period (if they actually get one) to build their military ASAP, and if not double buy as soon as possible and hope for the best. I'll have to think on that one. A recent defeat could lower the city requirement temporarily but that's getting into the realm of "How do you even program that in?".

All in all, best counterargument so far.

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15 minutes ago, superfalconpunch said:

Updeclaring is still a thing and not being removed in any way via my suggestion. I ONLY asked for a LOWER city limit, not an upper one too. A 20 city nation can still be declared on by one with 9, just not the other way around. I also never suggested any sort of removal of the Nation Score system, so yes, it WOULD push you out of range if you took enough damage. Lastly I never implied it was solely a 1vs1 scenario, because in the end one player with 20 cities will easily crush three players with 10 each.

So you want to further limit downdeclare capabilities while leaving updeclares unchanged? That is even worse.

3 players with 10 cities could easily crush a player with 20 cities if they employed the correct strategy, especially when considering that in order for that to even be possible, it would either be because those 3 players updeclared, or because that city 20 nation dropped quite a bit of military to hit those city 10 nations, weakening itself in the process.

You didn't need to imply it was a 1v1 scenario, its evident based on your arguments. The advantage of being a larger city nation reduces or completely disappears when dealing with multiple nations, which is common in real wars and not small raids or skirmishes that should not be used as a litmus test for what is a balanced system.

Edited by Sketchy

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Without replying and clogging up this poor forum page more, let me build a scenario.

You're a player who's making good progress. You're in a nice alliance, got some raids goin against neutrals and unaligned nations. Your military is, eh, 2/3 of max and you have 10 cities. This should put you at 100,000 soldiers, a sizeable airforce and navy, and a fair amount of tanks, doing the math if you have max factories for...whatever reason you'd have 8375.

One day, after you wake up and eat your breakfast or whatever your morning ritual is, you log on to see that a nation with 20 cities has declared on you, and has twice as many soldiers as you, very nearly as many tanks, and enough planes and ships to thwart your operations altogether. An alliance member mentions that they used what is essentially an exploit to the war system, selling off all their military, declaring on you, and then quickly double buying so that you can't hurt them. The only members that can tangle with them now are the ones up at 18 or so cities themselves, and your military has already been stomped underfoot, so you can't hire enough troops to fight back. Instead you're forced to wait and watch until either the person becomes largely indestructible to your alliance, lest they get properly countered, or they get brought back low enough that you can turn the tides.

I guarantee you that around 8 times out of 10 the first option comes into effect. It's completely unfair that a player can so easily scrape off their power, declare on someone who couldn't ever have a prayer of winning, and then immediately soar back out of that range in military strength. This is the problem I'm trying to fix. It's not a simply one-on-one war issue, it's not a case of "you should've been better prepared", it's a complete and utter disgrace of a tactic to use and it NEEDS to be discouraged or, in my eyes here, removed.

Also, Sketchy, in my personal experience the player with way more cities generally wins because they simply have more troops. They can repurchase more, they can especially double-buy more, and at the end of the day they still have an advantage as long as they keep their military topped up. Also, weren't you just complaining that updeclaring was the issue, not downdeclaring? Or did I misunderstand your argument?

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I'll try to explain my idea with numbers, as it easier for me.

Nation A starts the day with 100k soldiers.

He discharge 30k soldiers (30%of the total).

For the rest of the day his daily maximum recruiting will be lowered by 30%.

The day after by 25%, then 20%, than 15%, etc etc..

 

 

Or:

If a nation discharge army (not if that nation loose soldiers in a war, only if discharge) his military score will be lowered in 5 days, 20% score reduction every day.

 

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Its politics and war, if you cant win the war thru game mechanics, then use politics to win the war.   As a huge ass nation myself, I personally am pretty tired of people coming on here complaining that large nations have an advantage.  Guess what? we should have an advantage, we put a ton of work and effort to become large ass nations, who honestly are already at a disadvantage because we can be hit by a huge number of nations that we cannot touch. 

Now if you don't think its fair that people dump military and then are able to double buy and crush you, then join an alliance that has coverage to protect you against that, or make friends with an alliance that can back you up. Once they double buy their NS shoots up and they become vulnerable to people who they cant double buy against.  If you beat them down enough times, and not let them steal from you, they will stop hitting you because its not profitable for them to do so.

Stop trying to change the game to make your life easier.

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7 hours ago, Sweeeeet Ronny D said:

Its politics and war, if you cant win the war thru game mechanics, then use politics to win the war.   As a huge ass nation myself, I personally am pretty tired of people coming on here complaining that large nations have an advantage.  Guess what? we should have an advantage, we put a ton of work and effort to become large ass nations, who honestly are already at a disadvantage because we can be hit by a huge number of nations that we cannot touch. 

Now if you don't think its fair that people dump military and then are able to double buy and crush you, then join an alliance that has coverage to protect you against that, or make friends with an alliance that can back you up. Once they double buy their NS shoots up and they become vulnerable to people who they cant double buy against.  If you beat them down enough times, and not let them steal from you, they will stop hitting you because its not profitable for them to do so.

Stop trying to change the game to make your life easier.

Thanks, I AM in an alliance that helps to cover that kind of thing with a stable upper tier.  In case you haven't noticed, people like Arrgh! (shameless callout of the most well known one) and other pirate alliances like them don't always care. They pull BS downdeclares and then buy back up out of range, and every bit of loot they steal goes to a bank, be it the alliance bank or a bank nation. They don't care how much damage they take because other raids will cover the cost even if it's bust. It doesn't have to be "profitable" if that target has money to loot. They can't lose anything, so there's no real cost to them, giving them whatever they want to do it over and over and over and over. Just because we can counter this exploit in the war range system doesn't mean all alliances can.

To say that large nations should have an advantage over all others just because they've been playing longer is understandable, sure, but it's also incredibly selfish. Lower tier players at this point in time still need some kind of extra layer protecting them, and if you have a better solution I'd love to hear it. And beyond just that, it'd be incredibly dumb to say something like "old nations deserve advantages over all other players" because it just sounds greedy...though I suppose a Grumpy Old Man might fit that bill, huh.

Oh, and this change isn't specifically to make my life easier. It's to make life easier for hundreds of players who don't have the means to survive this.

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16 hours ago, superfalconpunch said:

Without replying and clogging up this poor forum page more, let me build a scenario.

You're a player who's making good progress. You're in a nice alliance, got some raids goin against neutrals and unaligned nations. Your military is, eh, 2/3 of max and you have 10 cities. This should put you at 100,000 soldiers, a sizeable airforce and navy, and a fair amount of tanks, doing the math if you have max factories for...whatever reason you'd have 8375.

A nice alliance protects its members, or at least avenges and rebuilds them should they be attacked. Your scenario hinges on an alliance being terrible not nice. In which case the advice of the day would be find a new alliance or improve the one you are in.

16 hours ago, superfalconpunch said:

One day, after you wake up and eat your breakfast or whatever your morning ritual is, you log on to see that a nation with 20 cities has declared on you, and has twice as many soldiers as you, very nearly as many tanks, and enough planes and ships to thwart your operations altogether. An alliance member mentions that they used what is essentially an exploit to the war system, selling off all their military, declaring on you, and then quickly double buying so that you can't hurt them. The only members that can tangle with them now are the ones up at 18 or so cities themselves, and your military has already been stomped underfoot, so you can't hire enough troops to fight back. Instead you're forced to wait and watch until either the person becomes largely indestructible to your alliance, lest they get properly countered, or they get brought back low enough that you can turn the tides.

This scenario isn't accurate to begin with, and ignores lots of factors.

A nation with 10 cities, and 1500 infra per city, full project slots, and maxed military, would have 1735 score.

A nation with 10 cities, and 1500 infra per city, full project slots, and a standard peacetime build, lets say 0-2-5-1 for arguments sake, would have 1245 score.

A nation with 20 cities, and 2000 infra per city, full project slots, and no military, would have 2110 score.

A nation with 2110 score can hit down as low as 1582.5 score, meaning it can't hit the 10 city nation if its using a peacetime build (varies depending on alliance obviously) but it can hit a nation at max military. 

Now we can assume that the 10 city nation is maxed in military because they are either planning an attack or expecting one. If this is the case, the responsibility is on the leadership of that nations alliance to find out and prepare that nation for the possibility of an attack. It is then on the responsibility of the nation in question to be logged in in order to defend their nation.

Now in order for the 20 city nation to double buy at all, this attack would need to take place at update. Which means the 10 city nation would be expected to login at update to defend themselves from potential attacks. If they aren't, its their problem. If they are, the 10 city nation now has a small window with which to capitalize on the 20 city nations weakness and take them out BEFORE they can complete their double buy.

If this fails, the alliance in question would be responsible for preparing counters to protect this 10 city nation from the 20 city nation. Your comment about 18 city nations being only able to hit the 20 city nation is incorrect, as updeclare range is 75%+ nation score, another group of three 10 city nations (or larger) could easily updeclare and counter this 20 city nation, who is already weakened by not being at max military due to their downdeclare.

16 hours ago, superfalconpunch said:

I guarantee you that around 8 times out of 10 the first option comes into effect. It's completely unfair that a player can so easily scrape off their power, declare on someone who couldn't ever have a prayer of winning, and then immediately soar back out of that range in military strength. This is the problem I'm trying to fix. It's not a simply one-on-one war issue, it's not a case of "you should've been better prepared", it's a complete and utter disgrace of a tactic to use and it NEEDS to be discouraged or, in my eyes here, removed.

Its called strategy. You are not thinking in the context of the wider game. Individual wars between nations are insignificant. Downdeclaring is a risky maneuver, it leaves the large nation exposed to counters by swarms of smaller nations. Wars are for the most part designed for and fought by alliances not just by individuals. Wars are decided by a lot more than that, alliance wealth and stockpiles, alliance tiering makeup, coordination and inter-alliance coordination, alliance member activity, alliance allies and treaties aka politics, morale etc.

Also your first bit about 8/10 times, that is inaccurate. Competent alliances don't have that problem, or if they do its because of a mistake they made not some unfair cosmic injustice of the mechanics of the game. A counter is far more common in a competent alliance.

16 hours ago, superfalconpunch said:

Also, Sketchy, in my personal experience the player with way more cities generally wins because they simply have more troops. They can repurchase more, they can especially double-buy more, and at the end of the day they still have an advantage as long as they keep their military topped up. Also, weren't you just complaining that updeclaring was the issue, not downdeclaring? Or did I misunderstand your argument?

"in my personal experience" And this is where your problem lies. You don't have any proper experience in an actual war, not a small skirmish, and I know that because if you did you'd not make this post in the first place. The player who generally wins is the player who is in the better alliance, or has the better allies, or has the better tiering, or is in the richer alliance, not the larger player.

And you did, my argument wasn't that updeclaring is an issue, since its not, my point was updeclaring is what MAKES downdeclaring fair. My advice to you, if you actually want some control over the success of individual wars, you should get more involved in your alliances milcom and government in general.

Edited by Sketchy
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Currently being raided by three 27-29 city nations from Arrgh with a vengeance, I think the system now is fine. Yea I know I don't stand a chance (17 cities against at least 10 more than me multiply by three) but it was my fault for building 20k tanks which brought my score in their range.

           Roman Empire

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19 minutes ago, Trajan said:

Currently being raided by three 27-29 city nations from Arrgh with a vengeance, I think the system now is fine. Yea I know I don't stand a chance (17 cities against at least 10 more than me multiply by three) but it was my fault for building 20k tanks which brought my score in their range.

 

This is what you need to understand. It's YOUR JOB to ensure that you don't get destroyed; not the games. You have the responsibility to ensure that its only your fault when you get destroyed in war. 

Edited by Conner Temple

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20 hours ago, superfalconpunch said:

Thanks, I AM in an alliance that helps to cover that kind of thing with a stable upper tier.  In case you haven't noticed, people like Arrgh! (shameless callout of the most well known one) and other pirate alliances like them don't always care. They pull BS downdeclares and then buy back up out of range, and every bit of loot they steal goes to a bank, be it the alliance bank or a bank nation. They don't care how much damage they take because other raids will cover the cost even if it's bust. It doesn't have to be "profitable" if that target has money to loot. They can't lose anything, so there's no real cost to them, giving them whatever they want to do it over and over and over and over. Just because we can counter this exploit in the war range system doesn't mean all alliances can.

To say that large nations should have an advantage over all others just because they've been playing longer is understandable, sure, but it's also incredibly selfish. Lower tier players at this point in time still need some kind of extra layer protecting them, and if you have a better solution I'd love to hear it. And beyond just that, it'd be incredibly dumb to say something like "old nations deserve advantages over all other players" because it just sounds greedy...though I suppose a Grumpy Old Man might fit that bill, huh.

Oh, and this change isn't specifically to make my life easier. It's to make life easier for hundreds of players who don't have the means to survive this.

There are all kinds of things you can do, I already gave you a bunch of them, but I am not here to teach you how to play this game, I guess that is the "advantage" I have for being a selfish older player.  And yes I do get grumpy when people post dumb crap on the forums trying to change game play to make their lives easier.

 

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On 11/22/2017 at 10:39 AM, superfalconpunch said:

Without replying and clogging up this poor forum page more, let me build a scenario.

salt assumptions emotions salt arbitrary statistics salt

Look, first and foremost, you're going to get attacked. That's a fundamental fact, and if you don't want to be attacked then your options are vacation mode or have a buddy beige you every week.

Second, you are going to lose. That's also a fact. If you think that 'good progress' involves 'being at some percentage of max military' or 'having a certain amount of infrastructure', then you're thinking like an pixel hugger, and you're part of The Problem. But even if you have max military, and a big alliance, and don't declare war on anybody... wars are still very much a threat to you. And they should be. If you get attacked by 3 nations that are identical to your own, then you're not going to win without help. And even if you are top nation with the most military and most infrastructure and most cities in the game, you're just going to get hit by attrition. There is no way for anyone to defend against a dedicated nuke/missile/spy campaign, and more importantly there shouldn't be. There must not be a 'winner' if the game is to persist as a dynamic experience; this isn't that kind of game. If the stable equilibrium is lost, then the game will fall to ruin. I've seen it happen dozens of times to dozens of promising games, and I do not want it to happen to this one.

Third, you should be willing to lose. Your scenario, even prior to the nation being attacked, has that nation declaring low-risk wars for profit. That's fine, but 'low risk' is very different from 'no risk'. If you think that 'raiding unaligned and neutral nations' is easy money, then you're welcome to raid me. I can certainly explain the fallacy of that mindset through example. Furthermore, if you get to declare low risk wars... then so do your enemies. You can profit off war, but you still have to defend yourself from others that do the same thing. Sometimes, you're going to even lose, because your enemies are more numerous, more wealthy, more dedicated, or more skilled; whatever the factors may be. Even so, you should take risks. The game is most fun when you have things to do and enemies to fight, and sometimes, if you're lucky and skilled and willing to be commit to the long haul... you might even win. But you cannot, and should not win or be able to win if you aren't taking risks or weathering costs.

You need to have the right mindset. What matters in case of a hopeless military situation is maintaining your presence of mind and managing the loss as effectively as possible. Call pacts or allies, buy time, spend or stash or destroy your money and resources, fortify, possibly even meet demands or just allow yourself to go beige. It all depends on the circumstances and what you want to try to preserve. The most important part of this is to remember that it is not "just a game", it is in fact a long-term and dynamic game. Sportsmanship matters, because if you win graciously then your enemies are less likely to seek emotionally-charged vengeance; similarly, if you lose, then be gracious about it and maybe you'll have the chance to win the next round, or even ally with that enemy when facing against another enemy. Making a big scary nation and beating up other players isn't the point of the game; having fun is the point of the game, and it's more enjoyable for everyone involved if it's enjoyable for everyone involved. It's counter intuitive, but true: if you're a bad sport, then people are going to be bad sports to you, and then everyone suffers for it. If you're a good sport, then some people will be bad sports to you anyway, but not everyone, and then only the bad sports suffer for it.

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