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Hafestus
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It costs 4 MAPs to fortify and it increases resistance by 10.

It costs 4 MAPs to do a Naval attack, which decreases resistance by 14 if you get an immense triumph, and 3 MAPs to do a ground attack, which decreases resistance by 10.

When you declare war against another nation without blitzkrieg or fortress, you start off with 6 MAPs and the war will last 60 turns. That gives you the potential to conduct 16.5 Naval attacks or 22 ground attacks, which will decrease resistance by 224 (16*14) or 220 (22*10) respectively, which is more than double the resistance needed to beige somebody. However, if I were to fortify, I would restore 160 (16*10) resistance. Meaning if I were to continually fortify the best you could do is bring my resistance down by 64 (224-160.)

 

The only way you could beige somebody is if they are inactive or if they want you to beige them.

 

Combine this with the new bounty system, and it becomes possible to choose who collects the bounty which is placed on you, simply by fortifying against the person you don't want to win. 

Edited by Hafestus
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Yep, I said that here

Would be nice having something like:

10M to anyone who does at least 500 infra damage to X nation

5M to anyone who kills at least 200k soldiers to X nation

15M to anyone who drops a nuke on X nation

etc.

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1 hour ago, Micchan said:

Would be nice having something like:

10M to anyone who does at least 500 infra damage to X nation

5M to anyone who kills at least 200k soldiers to X nation

15M to anyone who drops a nuke on X nation

etc.

The nuke bounties will be added.

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2 hours ago, Hafestus said:

The ability to increase your resistance by fortifying should be entirely removed or severely rebalanced before the bounty system is implemented.

Absolutely not; fortifying is the only way for losing nations to survive as competitive entities. Without it, the game can easily be won in perpetuity, and that's something that must be avoided.

Fortifying was already balanced to the best degree it can possibly be; nations currently need to be completely active and make no mistakes to fortify to safety, and cannot retaliate more than 9 or so action points worth, depending on the enemy attack patterns. That means that nations can avoid losing treasures and resource stockpiles and alliances can avoid bank losses, but they will still lose their military, infrastructure, IRL job, and sleep; and besides, any bounties on them will persist until they finally go beige. In fact, the way that bounties persist despite fortifying to war expiration makes fortifying all the weaker, since it doesn't remove that bounty.

Any rebalancing, in either direction, would be a horrible mistake. If fortifying was stronger, then it would be too easy to use and unfair. If fortifying was weakened, then alliances and players will be forced to keep blobbing and avoid war until doomsday, or worse, hasten the coming of cybar naytions or Rumsod levels of crap gameplay.

What I would say really needs to happen is for players and alliances to just get gud and learn to USE the tools that are presented to them. Right now, war can be waged without fear of effective permanent persecution; and real peace is something that can be rationally agreed to. If guerilla fortification strategies are removed, then peace is something that alliances must NEVER offer, since the only safety they can get is through putting their opponents into PZI. That kind of behavior leaves games deserted and devoid of life and players leave en masse, until the game becomes cybar naytions 2.0. Fortification avoids that fate.

Edited by Sir Scarfalot
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1 hour ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

Absolutely not; fortifying is the only way for losing nations to survive as competitive entities. Without it, the game can easily be won in perpetuity, and that's something that must be avoided.

Fortifying was already balanced to the best degree it can possibly be; nations currently need to be completely active and make no mistakes to fortify to safety, and cannot retaliate more than 9 or so action points worth, depending on the enemy attack patterns. That means that nations can avoid losing treasures and resource stockpiles and alliances can avoid bank losses, but they will still lose their military, infrastructure, IRL job, and sleep; and besides, any bounties on them will persist until they finally go beige. In fact, the way that bounties persist despite fortifying to war expiration makes fortifying all the weaker, since it doesn't remove that bounty.

Any rebalancing, in either direction, would be a horrible mistake. If fortifying was stronger, then it would be too easy to use and unfair. If fortifying was weakened, then alliances and players will be forced to keep blobbing and avoid war until doomsday, or worse, hasten the coming of cybar naytions or Rumsod levels of crap gameplay.

What I would say really needs to happen is for players and alliances to just get gud and learn to USE the tools that are presented to them. Right now, war can be waged without fear of effective permanent persecution; and real peace is something that can be rationally agreed to. If guerilla fortification strategies are removed, then peace is something that alliances must NEVER offer, since the only safety they can get is through putting their opponents into PZI. That kind of behavior leaves games deserted and devoid of life and players leave en masse, until the game becomes cybar naytions 2.0. Fortification avoids that fate.

Fortifying gives losing nations too much power as it becomes impossible to beige anybody except on their own terms. They simply have to log in once a day before their MAPs hit 12. I don't know about losing sleep or taking time off your job. It takes only a few seconds to log in and fortify.

The option to beige your opponent doesn't exist as a punishment for being inactive. The option to beige is there to allow aggressive players to raid, and to give the defender time to recover from a raid. It's simply not possible to raid anybody who is active. I would also disagree that without fortifying the game could easily be won (how?) There was a time when fortifying wasn't an option, wars were fought, and Arrgh was busy being Arrgh. What I'm suggesting is that it should be possible to defeat an active player in a war.

Edited by Hafestus
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1 hour ago, Hafestus said:

Fortifying gives losing nations too much power as it becomes impossible to beige anybody except on their own terms. They simply have to log in once a day before their MAPs hit 12. I don't know about losing sleep or taking time off your job. It takes only a few seconds to log in and fortify.

The option to beige your opponent doesn't exist as a punishment for being inactive. The option to beige is there to allow aggressive players to raid, and to give the defender time to recover from a raid. It's simply not possible to raid anybody who is active. I would also disagree that without fortifying the game could easily be won (how?) There was a time when fortifying wasn't an option, wars were fought, and Arrgh was busy being Arrgh. What I'm suggesting is that it should be possible to defeat an active player in a war.

Fortifying gives losing nations power, yes; but they would otherwise have none whatsoever. Beige gives time to recover and rebuild military, yes, but it doesn't stop nations from being immediately dogpiled by 3 downdeclares anyway as soon as it expires. And that's exactly what happens.

Aggressive players can raid profitably, and they do; the new bounty system will allow them to take anonymous merc contracts and either attempt to beige the opponent or just launch a nuke for a quick payout. And beige attempts are successful more often than not, considering that avoiding beige requires opening your nation up to far more infra damage, military damage, and potential for cash losses from ground battles. The fact that beige can be avoided doesn't make it the best option, especially not for players with decent infra levels.

Here's the thing that you're missing: raids happen at the lower tiers, or against the already defeated. Raiders go for inactive, low military, or new players, because those are the lowest risk targets. If those nations couldn't fortify their way out of beige, then they would permanently be stuck in a cycle of beige > rebuild > downdeclare'd > beige, and never escape unless they give up and blob together with a top alliance. On the other hand, if raiders go for active and wealthy players, then they're taking a greater risk, but if they succeed then they can actually expect to beige their opponent, since their opponent is otherwise going to lose more of his on hand cash and his expensive infrastructure. Fortifying doesn't help the bourgeoisie, and more importantly it shouldn't. Rather, it makes raiding the bourgeoisie much more lucrative and makes the game active and viable, rather than the current and past whales sitting on their invulnerable asses and squashing all potential rivals.

You're absolutely wrong if you think that the game can't be easily won. If a world war happens, and one bloc becomes dominant, then they can beat down everyone that doesn't join them ad infinitum, and more importantly they would be forced to, lest they lose and then have the same exact thing done to them. This pattern is undeniable, and it's nothing short of irresponsible to try to deny it. If we ignore the risks of unstable equilibrium, then we're just going to be playing cyber nations 2.0, and for sheepy's sake lets avoid that at all costs! The only way to prevent that pattern from being sustainable is to allow defenders the option to cost their opponents more than their opponents gain from wars, and that's exactly what fortification does.

1 hour ago, Hafestus said:

What I'm suggesting is that it should be possible to defeat an active player in a war.

This is based on a very false, and dangerous, premise. It is absolutely possible to defeat an active player in a war, fortification or not. If a player has lost millions worth of infrastructure, their whole military, and several of their improvements, then they HAVE lost, and that needs to be recognized. Fortification cannot prevent any of these things. If it happens, then they can't raid anyone themselves other than inactives or by attrition warring with missiles/nukes, and they can expect to be attacked on a constant basis until they can be rescued by counters or submit to beige.

It may be possible for the defender to avoid yielding profit to their opponent, but that is something that does need to be allowed and encouraged.

1 hour ago, Hafestus said:

There was a time when fortifying wasn't an option, wars were fought, and Arrgh was busy being Arrgh.

This is another critical point that you are missing. Since the very beginning, Arrgh has been able to perform their constant asymmetric guerrilla warfare because they used mechanics that allow them to preserve their resources despite being attacked by far stronger forces. You can easily beige an Arrgh nation, very easily in fact, but it is both useless and unprofitable to do so, just as if the Arrgh nation had fortified to avoid beige. The key difference is that fortification allows nations a much easier and simpler method of preserving their resources and avoiding yielding profit to their enemies, so that even a solo player can perform asymmetric warfare indefinitely, and without the need for complex logistics. (It does make Yarr more overpowered than it already was, but meh.)

Edited by Sir Scarfalot
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15 hours ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

You're absolutely wrong if you think that the game can't be easily won. If a world war happens, and one bloc becomes dominant, then they can beat down everyone that doesn't join them ad infinitum, and more importantly they would be forced to, lest they lose and then have the same exact thing done to them. This pattern is undeniable, and it's nothing short of irresponsible to try to deny it. If we ignore the risks of unstable equilibrium, then we're just going to be playing cyber nations 2.0, and for sheepy's sake lets avoid that at all costs! The only way to prevent that pattern from being sustainable is to allow defenders the option to cost their opponents more than their opponents gain from wars, and that's exactly what fortification does.

As you pointed out, it is still possible to be perpetually declared war against and lose all of your infrastructure and military units. What fortifying does is that it allows players to completely avoid being looted. This means that if a treasure spawned on your nation then nobody has a chance of taking it, and it suddenly becomes a viable strategy to put all of your alliance's steel into player banks rather than into the alliance bank. I also disagree that fortifying prevents big alliances from 'winning.' So long as two alliances are at war with each other at least one of them will be forced to stay mobilized, therefore making it profitable for even the winning alliance to want peace if they ever want to decommission their troops. What fortifying also does is that it suddenly makes it a good idea for rogue nations who don't belong in a big alliance to horde large amounts of resources in their own nations war chest without any repercussion. It doesn't do anything for giving smaller nations more power by preventing other nations from dog piling them.

 

Your claim that it is absolutely possible to defeat somebody in war is true in the sense that you could destroy their units, but it's not true in the game's sense. It's simply not possible to defeat somebody in war if they continue to fortify.

 

An alternative suggestion, which would seem to have the same effect and not as much downsides, is to simply remove the ability to loot alliance banks as well as remove the ability to fortify. Now it is in theory possible for an alliance to be at war indefinitely, while also being possible to loot another active player, collect his bounty, or take his treasure.

Edited by Hafestus
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Looting banks has always been stupid, but the main problem is that game actions are tied to beiging. Make it so you can claim a bounty or seize a treasure if you have more resistance when the wars expire. Players can still avoid the beige and attackers can get what they need.

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1 hour ago, Hafestus said:

As you pointed out, it is still possible to be perpetually declared war against and lose all of your infrastructure and military units. What fortifying does is that it allows players to completely avoid being looted. This means that if a treasure spawned on your nation then nobody has a chance of taking it, and it suddenly becomes a viable strategy to put all of your alliance's steel into player banks rather than into the alliance bank. I also disagree that fortifying prevents big alliances from 'winning.' So long as two alliances are at war with each other at least one of them will be forced to stay mobilized, therefore making it profitable for even the winning alliance to want peace if they ever want to decommission their troops. What fortifying also does is that it suddenly makes it a good idea for rogue nations who don't belong in a big alliance to horde large amounts of resources in their own nations war chest without any repercussion. It doesn't do anything for giving smaller nations more power by preventing other nations from dog piling them.

 

Your claim that it is absolutely possible to defeat somebody in war is true in the sense that you could destroy their units, but it's not true in the game's sense. It's simply not possible to defeat somebody in war if they continue to fortify.

 

An alternative suggestion, which would seem to have the same effect and not as much downsides, is to simply remove the ability to loot alliance banks as well as remove the ability to fortify. Now it is in theory possible for an alliance to be at war indefinitely, while also being possible to loot another active player, collect his bounty, or take his treasure.

I would argue that your concerns about treasure looting are more tied to treasures themselves rather than wars; besides, treasures only provide cash, which can be looted or spent on infrastructure which can be destroyed.

It's already a viable strategy to put all your alliances' steel into a bank alliance's bank. Players do fully avoid being looted, that's what Arrgh has done for years. Fortification simply expands that option to allow a simpler, and weaker, option to be available to everyone. And that's a very important step towards a more dynamic and enjoyable game for all.

Alliances that aren't mobilized should be anyway. Players that sit on their asses disgust me.

"Rogue" nations that don't want to join a big alliance should have that option and it should be encouraged, not avoided. They cause mobilization and drama and fun, something that the large alliances are loathe to even consider. And you're contradicting yourself about it not doing anything for smaller nations; rather it allows the smaller nations to avoid being profitably farmed and instead allows them to resist their enemies effectively and consistently, while suffering an appropriate cost for their actions. The contradiction is that smaller nations have the option to become 'rogue' nations, as you put it, whereas they never had that option before. This empowers them, and allows them to fight back against the dogpile. Sure, it doesn't stop the dogpile from happening, but it's better to allow that to happen AND be able to resist it than to prevent warfare from happening at all.

People can be defeated in war, if they can be baited to play too aggressively and be trapped. It's a matter of math. But even if they can't, then their treasure can be nullified (multiply low number gives low number) and their military obliterated and infrastructure burned to the ground, and that is more than enough defeat to be something to be avoided. In the test server, I have two treasures, but I'm still not remotely a contender for top score because I am constantly under fire by attempts to nab it. And I wouldn't have it any other way :lol:

Your suggestion would quite simply result in screwballs like me simply giving ourselves 100/100 taxes then taking stuff out from the alliance bank whenever we want to actually buy something, and thus it would absolutely be impossible to loot active or even inactive players.

1 hour ago, durmij said:

Looting banks has always been stupid, but the main problem is that game actions are tied to beiging. Make it so you can claim a bounty or seize a treasure if you have more resistance when the wars expire. Players can still avoid the beige and attackers can get what they need.


This is a good idea for treasure at least; I still think bounties should be tied to beige though since as I said before, if they persist past beige then they result in more wars and more attempts at gathering the bounty and thus making the fortification spam thing require more activity, strategy, and cost more in an appropriate way.

But it really is ridiculous for someone to be able to just hold onto their treasure despite not having a military.

Edited by Sir Scarfalot
good suggestion
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13 minutes ago, Micchan said:

Only two 25663526bb5bb75f1570ffef5a32ec10df437415.jpg

25641629c617b66a35fb34a126a5f0ae0ef5c64e

 

And how they work? Just drop a nuke is enough?

Grump. I lost the casualties award. That's the real loss :(

Edit: Wait no what's wrong with you that nation doesn't exist! props for gathering 7 all at once at least, but I'm keeping mine.

http://test.politicsandwar.com/nation/id=484

Edited by Sir Scarfalot
press F to pay respects for 7 treasure nation
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2 hours ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

I would argue that your concerns about treasure looting are more tied to treasures themselves rather than wars; besides, treasures only provide cash, which can be looted or spent on infrastructure which can be destroyed.

I'm concerned with the way in which war currently works and how looting functions. Fortifying, in its current state, is a mechanic that breaks certain aspects of the game. It was implemented with the intent of giving players an option to prolong a war, but it also happens to make it impossible to beige an active player, while making it possible to beige inactive players. Which I don't believe was ever the point of having the feature.

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It's already a viable strategy to put all your alliances' steel into a bank alliance's bank. Players do fully avoid being looted, that's what Arrgh has done for years. Fortification simply expands that option to allow a simpler, and weaker, option to be available to everyone. And that's a very important step towards a more dynamic and enjoyable game for all.

In the past you could at least loot the resources that they were holding on to. Now it is only possible to beige and loot somebody when they choose to be beiged.

 

Quote

Alliances that aren't mobilized should be anyway. Players that sit on their asses disgust me.

Looting an inactive player is just another form of sitting on your ass to use your own words. I can't imagine how that is a fun way to play the game, other than the risk that maybe the person you are attacking will come online and god forbid actually fight back. 

 

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"Rogue" nations that don't want to join a big alliance should have that option and it should be encouraged, not avoided. They cause mobilization and drama and fun, something that the large alliances are loathe to even consider. And you're contradicting yourself about it not doing anything for smaller nations; rather it allows the smaller nations to avoid being profitably farmed and instead allows them to resist their enemies effectively and consistently, while suffering an appropriate cost for their actions. The contradiction is that smaller nations have the option to become 'rogue' nations, as you put it, whereas they never had that option before. This empowers them, and allows them to fight back against the dogpile. Sure, it doesn't stop the dogpile from happening, but it's better to allow that to happen AND be able to resist it than to prevent warfare from happening at all.

What I am saying is that the only thing the fortify features does, is that it prevents nations from losing a small percentage of their bank when they do get beiged, and it prevents any active nation from losing treasure that may have spawned. It also affects alliance wars, because now when I fill my 5 slots, I can't simply beige one of my opponents and move on to the next target. I now have to wait for the entire war to expire even though my opponent may be utterly defeated. 

 

Quote

People can be defeated in war, if they can be baited to play too aggressively and be trapped. It's a matter of math. But even if they can't, then their treasure can be nullified (multiply low number gives low number) and their military obliterated and infrastructure burned to the ground, and that is more than enough defeat to be something to be avoided. In the test server, I have two treasures, but I'm still not remotely a contender for top score because I am constantly under fire by attempts to nab it. And I wouldn't have it any other way :lol:

In theory it is possible to be able to beige somebody only if they don't fortify. That therein lies the problem. When you say bait what you are saying is that it is literally impossible to beige somebody unless they make a mistake, and you use the test server as an example. On the test server a turn happens every 30 minutes. In the actual game it is four times longer, and it is significantly more difficult to goad somebody into making a mistake.

Quote

Your suggestion would quite simply result in screwballs like me simply giving ourselves 100/100 taxes then taking stuff out from the alliance bank whenever we want to actually buy something, and thus it would absolutely be impossible to loot active or even inactive players.

You seem to be against the idea of being able to loot national banks, rather than removing the option to fortify. Yet you still want to be able to loot another player's banks if they go inactive. Perhaps it's not fair for a small nation to be attacked and looted, but it's not meant to be fair. There are other ways to make smaller nation gameplay more viable without making it impossible to beige an active nation. As Durmij pointed out many game features revolve around the assumption that an attacking nation will be able to beige his opponent.

 

Our main point of disagreement seems to be that removing the option to fortify would break the game. I don't see fortifying to be all that useful for independent nations unless you were trying to protect a hoard of resources or a treasure, and in the earlier case you could always make a deal with another alliance to hold on to your resources.

 

Edited by Hafestus
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2 hours ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

Edit: Wait no what's wrong with you that nation doesn't exist! props for gathering 7 all at once at least, but I'm keeping mine.

Was deleted at the start of the tournament because everyone has to start at 5 cities with a new account

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3 hours ago, Hafestus said:

I'm concerned with the way in which war currently works and how looting functions. Fortifying, in its current state, is a mechanic that breaks certain aspects of the game. It was implemented with the intent of giving players an option to prolong a war, but it also happens to make it impossible to beige an active player, while making it possible to beige inactive players. Which I don't believe was ever the point of having the feature.

Fortifying does change certain aspects of the game, perhaps even in ways that sheepy didn't originally think of, but rather than breaking them it makes them much better for everyone. What you're arguing for is for the ability of dominant nations to constantly and profitably farm everyone else ad infinitum, with the defender having literally no options whatsoever for resisting. I've seen that behavior break every game in which it can be performed, and it will break this one if we let it. There is no way around that, short of all players choosing to give up on their dominance regularly and without being crushed ad infinitum themselves. Which would be absurd; people aren't wise enough or smart enough to do that.

3 hours ago, Hafestus said:

In the past you could at least loot the resources that they were holding on to. Now it is only possible to beige and loot somebody when they choose to be beiged.

No, again, no. 100/100 taxes plus sending loot to Yarr, keeping only a modicum of munitions/aluminum/steel/gas, calculated based on how much possible military can be produced by the end of the war. I don't know the specifics nor the formulas that Arrgh uses, but to the best of my understanding they are really good at rationing that for maximum effectiveness and minimum risk. Then if you attack them you loot almost nothing even if you beige your opponent, while they do intense damage to you, or whoever they attack, at essentially no risk. Fortification simply allows another way to achieve this result, and both methods are fair and worth maintaining as viable strategies. Besides, even if the defender gets beiged under the Arrgh approach, they certainly won't yield a profit to their attacker.

The reasoning behind eliminating fortification also applies to the concept of bank alliances, but it would be unfair to everyone to restrict that kind of mechanic just because Arrgh uses it the way they do. Fortification however is fairer to everyone and evens the playing field in a positive way.

What really matters to my experience is the cost of sealclubbing; if raiders can expect a profit from curbstomping small alliances and individuals, then they will be both more motivated and able to engage in that game-killing behavior. That behavior must be discouraged, and fortification is, whether designed by sheepy for this purpose or not, an incredibly fair and effective measure against dedgame.

3 hours ago, Hafestus said:

Looting an inactive player is just another form of sitting on your ass to use your own words. I can't imagine how that is a fun way to play the game, other than the risk that maybe the person you are attacking will come online and god forbid actually fight back.

It's not fun per se, it is however a way to farm resources with which to build or wage active wars. There's nothing wrong with that. And there's furthermore nothing wrong with them coming back online and fighting back; I certainly hope you're not accusing me of being afraid of warfare.

3 hours ago, Hafestus said:

What I am saying is that the only thing the fortify features does, is that it prevents nations from losing a small percentage of their bank when they do get beiged, and it prevents any active nation from losing treasure that may have spawned. It also affects alliance wars, because now when I fill my 5 slots, I can't simply beige one of my opponents and move on to the next target. I now have to wait for the entire war to expire even though my opponent may be utterly defeated.

It can prevent nations from losing their resources, and more importantly it should be able to, since this is a good thing. Nations should not be able to avoid damage or war, but they should have options to resist and persist as competitive entities, and indeed should have the option to deny loot to their opponents. Player behaviors and unstable equilibrium are both insurmountable factors that will result in deadgame otherwise.

As for alliance wars, your opponents should have the option to clog up your slots with heavy resistance. This is a good thing, even for you. You should not be able to get an easy or guaranteed profit, not even on an alliance vs alliance scale. Wars should not be decided within the first blitz and then permafarm until surrender or deletion, even if that's inconvenient for you personally. This game isn't easy and it absolutely never should be, otherwise the winners have to constantly beat down their opponents and it becomes a chore, while the losers have to lie back and take it since they have no options to escape.

3 hours ago, Hafestus said:

In theory it is possible to be able to beige somebody only if they don't fortify. That therein lies the problem. When you say bait what you are saying is that it is literally impossible to beige somebody unless they make a mistake, and you use the test server as an example. On the test server a turn happens every 30 minutes. In the actual game it is four times longer, and it is significantly more difficult to goad somebody into making a mistake.

I would dispute that; you're fighting against HUMAN players, and therefore mistakes are inevitable. Between network connectivity problems and family/medical emergencies and stuff, there's going to be opportunities for beige. Now, that's certainly not fair to have someone take ingame punishments for perfectly reasonable out of game emergencies, but it is still something that should be acknowledged as a possibility. But even if they are active and are able to use every action, it takes math to actually determine when you're safe to launch a battle and when you need to fortify or get naval attacked to beige. People don't always math properly, even I've made a couple mistakes and risked beige a few times. (Both times my opponents failed to see the opportunity and missed it through attacking with the wrong battle type)

3 hours ago, Hafestus said:

You seem to be against the idea of being able to loot national banks, rather than removing the option to fortify. Yet you still want to be able to loot another player's banks if they go inactive. Perhaps it's not fair for a small nation to be attacked and looted, but it's not meant to be fair. There are other ways to make smaller nation gameplay more viable without making it impossible to beige an active nation. As Durmij pointed out many game features revolve around the assumption that an attacking nation will be able to beige his opponent.

What I'm against is the idea that players should not have the option to preserve their national bank. ...That's a horrible sentence, I apologize for the double negative. Lemme rephrase: I believe that players should have the option to preserve their national and alliance banks through fortification. However, players should need to face consequences in order to do this; consequences which the current mechanics of fortification allow for, and any changes would threaten. Players need to be active, players need to be willing to lose their ability to project conventional military power, and players need to be willing to lose their infrastructure and improvements, and all of these are very valid and debilitating consequences to the fortification dodge.

If there are other, better ways than fortification to make small nation gameplay viable, I don't know what they are nor could possibly be; could you elaborate? It's not about fairness, it's about keeping the game playable at all. It's not like I'm arguing that a rogue solo nation should be the only way to hit the top leaderboards, here. I'm trying to argue that there should be the potential for those smaller nations and alliances to be able to wage guerrilla attrition wars against larger blob alliances. Without fortification, any attempt at guerrilla attrition wars would simply profit the larger blobs and thus only consolidation could even happen.

3 hours ago, Hafestus said:

Our main point of disagreement seems to be that removing the option to fortify would break the game. I don't see fortifying to be all that useful for independent nations unless you were trying to protect a hoard of resources or a treasure, and in the earlier case you could always make a deal with another alliance to hold on to your resources.

Fortifying is useful for protecting what resources those small nations and alliances even have in their banks at all, and more importantly it is useful for the option to prevent opponents from gaining profit off of opportunistic or spiteful sealclubbing. Whale hunting still is profitable, fortification or not, and (here comes the bold word again) should be. Spiteful sealclubbing to PZI nations or loot newbies and war victims should not be a guaranteed profit, and both whale hunting and seal clubbing should be risky for the attacker. Even if that risk is the risk of the defender fortifying to prolong the war and deny loot. As for making a deal with another alliance to hold onto resources, that can work, but it is more complex and has the possibility of sabotage, and also can be all too easily countered through blockade. The point that I'm trying to make is that fortification works to enable and empower underdog nations in a fair and balanced manner, and should absolutely not be changed at all.

Before you accuse me of bias or something, I want to clarify that I fully supported the change to fortification that made it cost 4 actions instead of 3. 3 action fortification was overpowered and allowed players to play almost as aggressively as they wanted to without worry, while 4 action fortification is in the exact sweet spot of allowing nations to avoid beige while not allowing nations that fortify to avoid beige to still play aggressively.

tl;dr: Raids should never be easy or guaranteed. Defenders should have a costly, but always available, option to deny loot to their attackers. Whale hunting needs to make a comeback, and fortification allows and encourages it, if people were willing to get gud and just do it. Fortification needs to not be changed, or Politics and War risks becoming cybernations 2.0. I've played these games for years, and Politics and War on a prior account a couple years ago, so I'm very confident in my conclusions.

Edit: The posts keep getting longer... O_o

Edited by Sir Scarfalot
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What you're arguing for is for the ability of dominant nations to constantly and profitably farm everyone else ad infinitum, with the defender having literally no options whatsoever for resisting.

I'm saying that the dominant nation should have the ability to win. I'm sure we could think of another way besides Moneybags to allow players to preserve their national bank, or to alleviate their losses, if that is the main concern (I'm not convinced that this is even necessary,) without making it impossible to defeat them in a war. I don't believe that it should be easy to preserve your bank, especially not to the point where it is impossible for somebody else raid it.

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If there are other, better ways than fortification to make small nation gameplay viable, I don't know what they are nor could possibly be; could you elaborate?

In terms of protecting loot there is moneybags, or we could simply make nations unable to raid banks as Durmij suggested.

 

We could leave the fortify option in the game, and reduce the MAPs that it restores from 10 to 5, and make it so that while you are fortified your enemy will receive less loot, and as a counter we could allow players to break fortifications through espionage.

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But even if they are active and are able to use every action, it takes math to actually determine when you're safe to launch a battle and when you need to fortify or get naval attacked to beige.

This is where you continue to lose me. A player could fortify past 100 resistance, and it's the easiest thing to do. They simply need to log in once a day, and press fortify three times.

Sure, if that player wanted to counter attack, then they would also have to be careful not to go below a certain resistance level. I didn't deny that you could try to bait somebody into a counter attack and beige them, but then you would be gambling on your opponent making a nasty mistake. It is, however, impossible to beige somebody if they decide to fortify, and don't want to be beiged. 

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As for alliance wars, your opponents should have the option to clog up your slots with heavy resistance. This is a good thing, even for you. 

But our opponents shouldn't be able to clog up our offensive slots with no resistance on their part, and with no hope of defeating them until the war expires in five days. You could try to spin being continually fortified against into a positive thing, but it's super lame. I certainly wouldn't buy that it's for my own good.

 

In short we aren't going to find common ground if we both don't agree that an active nation holding a treasure or a large hoard should be able to be beiged

Edited by Hafestus
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5 hours ago, Hafestus said:

I'm saying that the dominant nation should have the ability to win.

The losing nation should absolutely have the ability to avoid allowing their opponents profit. It should not be without consequence, but it should always be available. And it is absolutely necessary, because without it, it is possible to effectively and without any kind of attrition permafarm and PZI opponents and that maladaptive behavior becomes the only rational option available. That's how these games die. With fortification as it stands right now, losing nations DO lose. They lose the ability to do damage to other nations. They lose the ability to have more than 100k in their available cash pile. They lose the ability to make real money. Raiders may not see a profit off of attacking them, but, and I cannot stress this enough, THIS IS NOT A BAD THING AT ALL! Dominant nations should NOT have the unilateral ability to win, with the underdog nation having no option to avoid it. They should absolutely, positively never have that ability. It is a very bad thing, and inevitably, invariably results in cybernations levels of dead and shit game.

To reiterate, losing nations should have the ability to avoid beige. How many times do I need to even say it? I'll say it again: all nations, regardless of resources available to them, should be able to avoid beige through dedicated action.

5 hours ago, Hafestus said:

I'm sure we could think of another way besides Moneybags to allow players to preserve their national bank, or to alleviate their losses, if that is the main concern (I'm not convinced that this is even necessary,) without making it impossible to defeat them in a war. I don't believe that it should be easy to preserve your bank, especially not to the point where it is impossible for somebody else raid it

Moneybags nothing; it's not a question of alleviating losses. Losses are actually something that should happen. Profit, on the other hand, should be something that losing nations can prevent raiders from attaining. I really need to get this through to you: raiders should not be able to force a profit. Raiders should be able to cause damage, but as of right now, fortification is exactly where it needs to be.

And how many times? It is not impossible to lose a war. Fortification still results in dead military and dead infrastructure and dead income. These are things that players need to avoid in order to be relevant in world politics. What should be impossible is for nations to have no option to resist prolonged warfare, but only be able to reroll, be farmed, consolidate, or quit.

5 hours ago, Hafestus said:

In terms of protecting loot there is moneybags, or we could simply make nations unable to raid banks as Durmij suggested.

We could leave the fortify option in the game, and reduce the MAPs that it restores from 10 to 5, and make it so that while you are fortified your enemy will receive less loot, and as a counter we could allow players to break fortifications through espionage.

This is where you continue to lose me. A player could fortify past 100 resistance, and it's the easiest thing to do. They simply need to log in once a day, and press fortify three times.

Nations being unable to raid banks makes the problem that you're concerned about far, far worse, even if fortification were to be removed entirely.

Your suggestions would eliminate the factors that make fortification the perfect balancing mechanic that it is, and would absolutely result in further consolidation and player exodus and shit gameplay. Fortification must absolutely not be changed in any direction, under any circumstances.

A player can fortify past 100 resistance, sure; what's your point? All forms of conventional battles remove resistance faster than fortification gains it, so it's a temporary situation at best, unless the attacker is relatively inactive.

5 hours ago, Hafestus said:

then they would also have to be careful not to go below a certain resistance level. I didn't deny that you could try to bait somebody into a counter attack and beige them, but then you would be gambling on your opponent making a nasty mistake. It is, however, impossible to beige somebody if they decide to fortify, and don't want to be beiged.

Yes, it is impossible to beige someone that chooses to accept the fortification option, and it should be! Remember that opportunistic raids and permafarming by necessity happen to the least powerful and least wealthy players, including new players, players with fewer allies, and players that have had their militaries destroyed in prior warfare. These are the players that stand to benefit from fortifying, and they need that option, because the alternative is to consolidate, be farmed, reroll (and stay in the exact same situation), or quit. This inevitably leads to the latter, which makes the game worse for everyone. Fortification does nothing to help whales, and it shouldn't. What fortification is is a mechanic that truly allows underdog players to compete, while encouraging everyone to take risks in attacking the top players. And this is what needs to be the case. If fortification is changed, in any way, then we will never see dynamism, only consolidation and ultimately pixelhuggers complaining about lack of warfare like we do already.

5 hours ago, Hafestus said:

But our opponents shouldn't be able to clog up our offensive slots with no resistance on their part, and with no hope of defeating them until the war expires in five days. You could try to spin being continually fortified against into a positive thing, but it's super lame. I certainly wouldn't buy that it's for my own good.

Your opponents should be able to make war difficult for you. It should absolutely not be easy. Just because it is inconvenient for you doesn't mean that it's a bad thing to have in the game. Clogging up your offensive slots is a solid and important strategic consideration, especially since in order for that scenario to exist, your enemy alliance needs to outnumber your alliance 5 to 3. War isn't easy, it should not be easy, and it sure as hell shouldn't be convenient. As for it being for your own good, it absolutely is. A well-balanced and active game is fun and dynamic and interesting; what you'd get if you got what you're asking for is either you killing everyone until and beyond the point that it becomes joyless work, or you getting stomped forever with no way out of the situation other than quitting or else joining the joyless workers forever, or at least until you quit anyway. This fate is worse for you, unless you happen to be a masochist work fetishist. If you are, well, then you do your thing man.

5 hours ago, Hafestus said:

In short we aren't going to find common ground if we both don't agree that an active nation holding a treasure or a large hoard should be able to be beiged

Nations should absolutely be able to prevent their opponents from getting profit. Now, treasure, sure. That's a solid point and something that should be lootable by winning nations. As durmij said though, all it needs is for treasures to be claimed by the nation with the highest resistance at the end of any given war; then it'd be dynamic and all that. I fully support that idea.

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8 hours ago, Sir Scarfalot said:

Moneybags nothing; it's not a question of alleviating losses. Losses are actually something that should happen. Profit, on the other hand, should be something that losing nations can prevent raiders from attaining. I really need to get this through to you: raiders should not be able to force a profit. Raiders should be able to cause damage, but as of right now, fortification is exactly where it needs to be.

I suggested bringing the 10 resistance increase down to 5 (or 6), so that it is now possible to beige your opponent while also being possible to delay a war, and also allowing fortify to decrease the amount of loot taken, as a means to prevent your opponent from gaining as much off of your defeat. Moneybags prevents the enemy from looting you as well, which also decreases profit motive if that's your main concern. You also can't loot credits. If you wanted to protect your money simply buy credits.

 

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And how many times? It is not impossible to lose a war. Fortification still results in dead military and dead infrastructure and dead income.

If you want a "Victory" as the game defines it you need to beige your opponent, which is impossible.

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Yes, it is impossible to beige someone that chooses to accept the fortification option, and it should be!

It absolutely shouldn't. If your opponent is defeated then you should win. I don't mind giving the loser an option to fight back, but if you lose then you should be beiged if your opponent decides that he wants to do so.

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Your opponents should be able to make war difficult for you. It should absolutely not be easy.

I don't mind giving nations the ability to delay a war or to decrease the amount of loot that his opponent receives, but I do mind that it is impossible to win a war after your enemy has been defeated.

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Clogging up your offensive slots is a solid and important strategic consideration, especially since in order for that scenario to exist, your enemy alliance needs to outnumber your alliance 5 to 3. 

I disagree, it may as well be an abuse of a broken game mechanic. And, as you pointed out, the bogged down alliance (or tier within an alliance) would be outnumbered 5:3. Why arbitrarily make things more difficult for the weaker guys? If the bigger alliance allows themselves to get into that situation then they should be beiged and looted.

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what you'd get if you got what you're asking for is either you killing everyone until and beyond the point that it becomes joyless work, or you getting stomped forever with no way out of the situation other than quitting or else joining the joyless workers forever, or at least until you quit anyway. This fate is worse for you, unless you happen to be a masochist work fetishist. If you are, well, then you do your thing man.

I think you are overstating how overpowered it is to beige your opponent. It's really not a big deal unless you are hoarding 100,000 steel, 2500 infra, or a treasure. You are going to lose most of your money and infra by the fighting and not from the beige itself. 

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With the way these types of games work, the winners must never be allowed to snowball, and that's why fortification is absolutely indispensable and must not be changed in any direction. It must be the defender that has the options. You can keep saying that 'winning nations should have the ability to win', but that is very wrong. What really is necessary is that lesser nations should have the option to deny profit but take more damage, or allow profit but take less damage. That way, lesser nations can engage in guerrilla attrition warfare, while larger nations and larger alliances/blocs have actual risks to be concerned about. Under your plan, lesser nations can be beaten down ad infinitum, and larger alliances/nations/blocs have no risks against them at all if they consolidate hard enough.

5 hours ago, Hafestus said:

I think you are overstating how overpowered it is to beige your opponent. It's really not a big deal unless you are hoarding 100,000 steel, 2500 infra, or a treasure. You are going to lose most of your money and infra by the fighting and not from the beige itself. 

If anything I'm understating it; small alliances lose disproportionately more to beige than large alliances, which further exacerbates the problems that we're facing right now. Besides, 2500 infra isn't protected by fortification, as I've already stated over a dozen times. More importantly, I'm saying that the defender should have the option to wholly prevent profit to their attackers, as long as it is costly enough (which it is).

If you are going to lose most of the money and infra from fighting and not from beige, which is true, then fortification spamming isn't overpowered or broken as you say. It just results in more losses, should a whale attempt the tactic. Therefore whales aren't benefitted by the mechanic, and this encourages more wars at the upper tiers. It also discourages wars against the lower tiers and against the weaker and poorer players, such as newbies and war victims and smaller alliances, which is healthy for the game and allows dynamism. Remember that the vast majority of wars in game are against newbies/low military/small alliances; and that's not healthy since it makes it harder for those players to rise to the top, while it makes it too easy for the top players to maintain their position. Give the non-whales a chance, and make the whales fight for their dominant position at long last.

6 hours ago, Hafestus said:

If you want a "Victory" as the game defines it you need to beige your opponent, which is impossible.

Well, we could redefine 'victory' for the purposes of treasure transfers or national statistics and approval rating to be 'have more resistance than your opponent at the end of war' rather than 'beige opponent'. As long as this doesn't affect looting other than treasure, I'd say it would be a good and healthy change. However, remember that beige is specifically a surrender by the losing side; nations historically have been willing to accept tremendous infrastructure losses and bury their resources in secret stashes or just burn their own cities to the ground than surrender, and that option should be available ingame as well. Currently it exists through fortification, and it is perfectly balanced.

6 hours ago, Hafestus said:

I disagree, it may as well be an abuse of a broken game mechanic. And, as you pointed out, the bogged down alliance (or tier within an alliance) would be outnumbered 5:3. Why arbitrarily make things more difficult for the weaker guys? If the bigger alliance allows themselves to get into that situation then they should be beiged and looted.

Every 3 nations have enough offensive slots to fully attack 5 nations. If those 5 nations are defeated by the 3, then why shouldn't the game mechanics reflect the 3 nations being over extended? Besides, they're self-evidently NOT the weaker side if they're able to force their opponents to fortification.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 07. 12. 2017. at 7:25 PM, Hafestus said:

It costs 4 MAPs to fortify and it increases resistance by 10.

It costs 4 MAPs to do a Naval attack, which decreases resistance by 14 if you get an immense triumph, and 3 MAPs to do a ground attack, which decreases resistance by 10.

When you declare war against another nation without blitzkrieg or fortress, you start off with 6 MAPs and the war will last 60 turns. That gives you the potential to conduct 16.5 Naval attacks or 22 ground attacks, which will decrease resistance by 224 (16*14) or 220 (22*10) respectively, which is more than double the resistance needed to beige somebody. However, if I were to fortify, I would restore 160 (16*10) resistance. Meaning if I were to continually fortify the best you could do is bring my resistance down by 64 (224-160.)

 

The only way you could beige somebody is if they are inactive or if they want you to beige them.

 

Combine this with the new bounty system, and it becomes possible to choose who collects the bounty which is placed on you, simply by fortifying against the person you don't want to win. 

And? It just means there will be another wave of bounty hunters, and then another, and people will keep adding more bountys on you. So end result is you get constant time of being hit, unability to rebuild, trade, bank, or even fight back for that matter. Mate not even I would want that for more than few weeks. I'd let them beige me at some point.

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On 08. 12. 2017. at 2:43 AM, Hafestus said:

Fortifying gives losing nations too much power as it becomes impossible to beige anybody except on their own terms. They simply have to log in once a day before their MAPs hit 12. I don't know about losing sleep or taking time off your job. It takes only a few seconds to log in and fortify.

The option to beige your opponent doesn't exist as a punishment for being inactive. The option to beige is there to allow aggressive players to raid, and to give the defender time to recover from a raid. It's simply not possible to raid anybody who is active. I would also disagree that without fortifying the game could easily be won (how?) There was a time when fortifying wasn't an option, wars were fought, and Arrgh was busy being Arrgh. What I'm suggesting is that it should be possible to defeat an active player in a war.

Not true. If you fail to beige them first time, try again, and again. At one point his infa level would be so low that he won't be able to upkeep his improvments, let alone any sort of army. There is also the option to airstike money to speed up the process. Once you're both blockaded and billocked, you can't use your MAPs to fortify or otherwise. Ofc, it's not impossible to get out of that situation either, but at what cost? Destroying all of your improvments, that you worked so hard to build. And what then, when you're stuck with permanent blockade, and a powerplant a barrack per city? What hopes of profit do you have? Not to mention once you're done with it you'd have to rebuild to insane amounts of infra like 1500 or even 2000 to rebuild all your improvments. Resisting the beige to that degree certantly isn't profitable to anyone and I can't imagine anyone doing it out of any other reason than out of spite. And even then he'll get tired and bored of it and give up eventually.

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So in short, what @Hafestushere is arguing is not that there is game mehanic that trough explotation makes an impossible scenarion for one side (in this case, the stronger side wich already has an advantage) but that he doesn't understand game mehanics and/or is not creative enough to achive what he wants withing the limitations of the said game mehanics, so he wants the game mehanics to be change into his favour so he doesn't need to learn to play the game to be the best. So my suggestion to his dillema is, how about no?

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