CyberNations and the magic beanstalk

[Rayvon]

As far as war mechanics go, what if you not only needed a certain amount of tech or infra to purchase war wonders, but also needed that to maintain them?

 

This would prevent the low tier wrecking balls so unfair to newer players.  So you buy the WRC, but if you get enough tech/infra loss, you lose the ability to use that wonder.  You don't have to re-buy it again, but you have to build back up the tech and infra to use it.  With the MP, you could still use any nukes you have already purchased, but no buying any more until you have the tech/infra on hand to support their purchase.

 

Seems like that would really balance the wars out.  Haven't really thought this one out, just came to me.

 

Looking at the NSO-Kaskus war for an example, and the effect it had on retention for us and our small nations - I like this ... The 1000+ day old Kaskus nations with 10+ wonders sitting down at the bottom level declaring victory because they could keep knocking around our new nations till they quit the game as those new nations were the only one's in size to be able to fight .. Major fudge to the balance, makes the Nation Strength marker kind of useless. 

[Walshington]

 

Looking at the NSO-Kaskus war for an example, and the effect it had on retention for us and our small nations - I like this ... The 1000+ day old Kaskus nations with 10+ wonders sitting down at the bottom level declaring victory because they could keep knocking around our new nations till they quit the game as those new nations were the only one's in size to be able to fight .. Major fudge to the balance, makes the Nation Strength marker kind of useless. 

We kind of do the same thing with Navies and Level 9 aircraft now -- you can't buy them if you don't have the infra or land to do so.  More realistic -- you can use what you've got until it's destroyed, then you can only use what you build.   Seems like if you added the wonders to the mix, it would make fights more fair.  Plus, surrender would become a better option if you knew you'd have to buy back to get the wonder benefits.  It would also reduce warchests more as you struggled to maintain your wonders.

 

I kind of like it.  I always kind of wanted to be the low tier wrecking ball, but the more I think about it it would be more fun this way -- I get no real thrill out of destroying someone who can't fight back, unless that guy made choices to put himself in that position.  Maybe make PM mode punishing as well, to get more alliance buy in during war.  In RL, you don't get to decide if you're at peace or not -- maybe the game should make that choice more difficult as well.  Maybe PM only from GA's, but air raids, CM's and naval blockades could still be used against you.

 

Just spitballing again, haven't really thought this through.  That's what you smart guys are for.

[admin]

What admin could do

 

1) Depending on us creating a guide, maybe admin could add a link to it in the welcome message for new players.

 

2) Change the balance of the game to discourage monster warchests. I see this as the single change that would most dramatically affect the games viability long term. If people can’t fight for months then rebuild instantly they won’t fight for months. If it only takes a few months to build an appropriate warchest then people won’t spent a year saving one. The net result would be shorter wars more often.

 

3) Investigate ways to allow legitimate people to have the same IP address. I don’t have solution but I really hope this issue isn’t doomed forever to the too hard basket. Over the years I have played I’ve seen many players who began as a school class room exercise (technically the entire class are in breach of the rules) or joined because their sibling etc recommended the game. It’s is the only game I know of where two brothers for example living at home with a wifi network cant both play.

 

1) Make a good guide or better yet a really good demonstration video on youtube and I will link to it in the welcome message and elsewhere. I'll even offer up ten $30 donations to you and/or your friends on the guide/video that I choose to use. New thread here for this.

 

2) If a player has played and built for many years and is not allowed a large enough warchest to rebuild after war, I fear that more players will just quit.

 

3) Implemented today.

[ChairmanHal]

 

Looking at the NSO-Kaskus war for an example, and the effect it had on retention for us and our small nations - I like this ... The 1000+ day old Kaskus nations with 10+ wonders sitting down at the bottom level declaring victory because they could keep knocking around our new nations till they quit the game as those new nations were the only one's in size to be able to fight .. Major fudge to the balance, makes the Nation Strength marker kind of useless. 

Some people who shall go nameless don't seem to think that game balance is a problem even when a nation has 5x the NS of another one, just ask them...on second thought, please don't, at least in this thread.   <_<  

 

There was a discussion in the Suggestion Box a while back about whether or not certain wonders should be deactivated or degraded if you no longer have the requisite amount of infra/land/tech/whatever to purchase them to begin with.  That makes sense, save that people who just qualify to purchase a wonder (especially a military wonder) right before a war starts sort of get screwed if they take damage.  However, I still like the idea of there being some minimum to benefit from holding certain wonders, much like having Manhattan Project doesn't do you a lot of good if you don't meet the minimum requirements (Uranium source, min. infra, tech) to purchase more nukes.

[admin]

There was a discussion in the Suggestion Box a while back about whether or not certain wonders should be deactivated or degraded if you no longer have the requisite amount of infra/land/tech/whatever to purchase them to begin with.  That makes sense, save that people who just qualify to purchase a wonder (especially a military wonder) right before a war starts sort of get screwed if they take damage.  However, I still like the idea of there being some minimum to benefit from holding certain wonders, much like having Manhattan Project doesn't do you a lot of good if you don't meet the minimum requirements (Uranium source, min. infra, tech) to purchase more nukes.

What wonders are you referring to specifically? Can you make a suggestion box topic for this?

[YOLO SWAG]

What wonders are you referring to specifically? Can you make a suggestion box topic for this?

I think getting rid of wonders for players who choose to haunt the lower tier will get rid of a group of dedicated players. Consider how pvp is affected in other games when people are no longer allowed to have "twink" characters. Sure it's annoying for younger nations, but wonder stacking small nations is a legitimate strategy when some larger nations have huge war chests that newer players have no chance to counter. Edited July 2, 2014 by YOLO SWAG

[The Warrior]

We kind of do the same thing with Navies and Level 9 aircraft now -- you can't buy them if you don't have the infra or land to do so.  More realistic -- you can use what you've got until it's destroyed, then you can only use what you build.   Seems like if you added the wonders to the mix, it would make fights more fair.  Plus, surrender would become a better option if you knew you'd have to buy back to get the wonder benefits.  It would also reduce warchests more as you struggled to maintain your wonders.

 

I kind of like it.  I always kind of wanted to be the low tier wrecking ball, but the more I think about it it would be more fun this way -- I get no real thrill out of destroying someone who can't fight back, unless that guy made choices to put himself in that position.  Maybe make PM mode punishing as well, to get more alliance buy in during war.  In RL, you don't get to decide if you're at peace or not -- maybe the game should make that choice more difficult as well.  Maybe PM only from GA's, but air raids, CM's and naval blockades could still be used against you.

 

Just spitballing again, haven't really thought this through.  That's what you smart guys are for.

 

I think that the particular issue that we are essentially attempting to curtail here, namely nuke turrets, would be better corrected by adjusting a different phase of the war function. There was a long discussion in the suggestion box more than a year ago about how to eliminate nuke turrets. One of the solutions suggested was to force a nation to maintain some sort of military force in order to be able to launch nuclear weapons. Personally, I would be more in favor of something along these lines than setting infra/tech requirements for use for a larger majority of wonders. Large nations who have had all of their infrastructure destroyed and choose just to sit in a lower tier buying up to 1k infra to launch nukes are hurting the war system. These nations are in many cases former upper tier nations with full wonder sets who can sit at 1k infra and turtle, taking no damage other than token tech damage from Nuke's/CM's. I think that forcing a nation to maintain a military in order to launch nukes would more likely encourage people to spend more of their warchests on infra AND military in order to do damage. This would in turn afford smaller nations the opportunity to actually be able to do some damage to these larger nations by winning GA's and stealing some of their cash in GA's.

Edited July 2, 2014 by The Warrior

[Auctor]

I think getting rid of wonders for players who choose to haunt the lower tier will get rid of a group of dedicated players. Consider how pvp is affected in other games when people are no longer allowed to have "twink" characters. Sure it's annoying for younger nations, but wonder stacking small nations is a legitimate strategy when some larger nations have huge war chests that newer players have no chance to counter.

 

This strategy is still viable at a 10k NS level v. a 3k NS level. I can see requiring 3k infra, 200 tech for MP to function, 5k infra, 1k tech for WRC to function as being good ways to 1) make war expensive(it should be) and 2) protect newb nations from weapons they have no way to reciprocate with.

 

It doesn't completely remove a lower tier strategy, just adjusts it to a more appropriate NS range.

[Bob]

 

This strategy is still viable at a 10k NS level v. a 3k NS level. I can see requiring 3k infra, 200 tech for MP to function, 5k infra, 1k tech for WRC to function as being good ways to 1) make war expensive(it should be) and 2) protect newb nations from weapons they have no way to reciprocate with.

 

It doesn't completely remove a lower tier strategy, just adjusts it to a more appropriate NS range.

Agreed.  It shouldn't be removed, just require some NS in order to utilize it.  

[hartfw]

 

This strategy is still viable at a 10k NS level v. a 3k NS level. I can see requiring 3k infra, 200 tech for MP to function, 5k infra, 1k tech for WRC to function as being good ways to 1) make war expensive(it should be) and 2) protect newb nations from weapons they have no way to reciprocate with.

 

It doesn't completely remove a lower tier strategy, just adjusts it to a more appropriate NS range.

 

I'm really not concerned with making a tech requirement on a wrc -- you don't get double tech damage when you have no tech is kinda a small point. But a 5k infra to function requirement would be interesting for ripping through war chests quicker.  Even a 2k would be up the burn rate of a war.

 

In terms of nukes, they definitely make war asymmetrical at a certain level.  But a lot of people play based upon that.  I would think just the minor tweak of upping it to 200 tech would be about all I would be comfortable with, but I do hate change.

[General Somoza]

Not a fan of making wonders inoperative if you below a threshold of some sort. Maybe if you were required to begin a war at some level for the wonders to work, but then when you fell below they'd continue to function. I don't see the gain in telling a nation that has been involved in a war that there was no value in building up to get the wonders in the first place. 

 

I love the idea of forcing a nation to maintain a military in order to nuke. As it stands today, I am at war with 2 nations. I have been nuked daily and that's it. One of them buys soldiers every day allowing ground attacks. The other has not done anything other than nuke since this started. If you're seeking to do damage to someone else you should probably be open to full attacks. That or allow ground attacks to take place against 0 troops and be more damaging than they would have been if you would have maintained an appropriate army. 

 

I love that the IP restriction is gone. Years ago my wife played and we had an exemption. But something kept going wrong and we'd get deleted and Admin would have to correct the problem. Finally just gave up on doing that. She'll be happy to know she can build a nation again. 

[Bob]

Could the alliance guide be something worked into the game? We already have basic information on alliances (forums, leader, etc), would it be possible to just add some more fields and than make a huge list? That way it's easier to access from the moment they sign up rather than having to make it to the forums.

 

Not sure on how we can control war chest sizes.

Allow for parsing through that list based off of criteria? not sure how much of a drain something like that would be though

[Sarkin]

In "ancient times", some nations specialized in being bank nations, accumulating large amounts of money which they then dished out just before the war started and then periodically as the conflict dragged on.  What changed is that players figured out that it is more efficient for nations to retain their own large warchests rather relying on bank nations.  What also changed is that the average nation size became larger, so accumulating a large warchest on your own became more practical.  Unlike you, I don't see that a mechanical change is necessary.  If however alliances stopped making silly demands for massive reps up front in their negotiations and set reasonable surrender terms, and stopped insisting on hanging around until alliance XYZ and alliance ABC get white peace or some such, then wars would get much, much shorter.  It's therefore a player issue. 

 

I remember serving as GGA's minister of finance during VietFAN and the Unjust War, and we used bank nations and aid chains to handle war/reconstruction aid. There was definitely the sentiment around at that time that we could fight pretty much indefinitely with that system, since many fights were non-nuclear and nations were smaller + cheaper to rebuild. 

 

I think that massive warchests are part of the reason why alliances are comfortable dragging wars out, but I agree with Hal that it's primarily a player issue. Yes, people are willing to be stubborn about the peace process because they can fall back on their warchests to get them through it, but they still have to make that decision to be stubborn in the first place.

 

 

This strategy is still viable at a 10k NS level v. a 3k NS level. I can see requiring 3k infra, 200 tech for MP to function, 5k infra, 1k tech for WRC to function as being good ways to 1) make war expensive(it should be) and 2) protect newb nations from weapons they have no way to reciprocate with.

 

It doesn't completely remove a lower tier strategy, just adjusts it to a more appropriate NS range.

 

Agreed, I think that this is how to do it. If that is is a no-go, though, I'd be fine with "must maintain a military" as a reasonable alternative.

 

 

1) Highlight the benefits of joining a community (alliance) in CN in the welcome message every nation receives upon it's creation  

2) Offer a cash incentive (6m?) paid from the game itself for joining an alliance.

 

Highlighting the benefits of alliances in the initial welcome message combined with a cash incentive could potentially be a great catalyst for encouraging new players to be more open to recruitment which in theory should increase retention simply by interacting with the greater community.  

 

I also really like these ideas, although I think I would increase that incentive to $10 million. $6 million is sort of a random number to use beyond the fact that it's the non-FAC aid cap.

Edited July 2, 2014 by Sarkin

[Rayvon]

 

I think that the particular issue that we are essentially attempting to curtail here, namely nuke turrets, would be better corrected by adjusting a different phase of the war function. There was a long discussion in the suggestion box more than a year ago about how to eliminate nuke turrets. One of the solutions suggested was to force a nation to maintain some sort of military force in order to be able to launch nuclear weapons. Personally, I would be more in favor of something along these lines than setting infra/tech requirements for use for a larger majority of wonders. Large nations who have had all of their infrastructure destroyed and choose just to sit in a lower tier buying up to 1k infra to launch nukes are hurting the war system. These nations are in many cases former upper tier nations with full wonder sets who can sit at 1k infra and turtle, taking no damage other than token tech damage from Nuke's/CM's. I think that forcing a nation to maintain a military in order to launch nukes would more likely encourage people to spend more of their warchests on infra AND military in order to do damage. This would in turn afford smaller nations the opportunity to actually be able to do some damage to these larger nations by winning GA's and stealing some of their cash in GA's.

 

 

Personally, I'm not even concerned with the warchest issue .. I think that's a fair enough thing to keep in place, different countries are richer than others in real life .. The one's who have nuclear weapons MUST have an army to keep those protected and functioning; extending that here I think would solve a large portion of that problem ...

 

I'm strapped for ideas, but I do believe the wonders need to have some sort of effect between nations - be it that they weigh into NS more directly somehow or something .. I dunno ... Again with the NSO-Kaskus thing (I think it's a great example because we get influxes of new players we're trying to keep in the game with players like those around); when they're sitting so low with all those wonders it drives the new blood out of the game ... That war we lost more players that were less than a week or two old more than anything ... It didn't even affect our overall alliance funds ..

 

No matter what changes we make, we're going to lose people ... So we need to decide - or Admin needs to decide for us based on his point 2 above - which is more important. New nations into the game, or protecting the long-term players that might leave because they no longer have every edge over every nation in their range and can't handle 'fair' and need decks stacked in their favour to stay and play against that influx of new players instead of bullying them out ...... Personally, I'd rather bank on the new blood .. New blood leads to more new blood which leads to more new blood .. Old blood leads to stagnation ...

 

Those of us circa 2006-2007-2008 really need to be the one's to push for changes to keep the game alive rather than be the one's pressing for it to be the same and threatening our activity against any change that might help retain players. We were here during the hay day, and we know just what the game can offer if people drop the sky is falling act ... 

Edited July 2, 2014 by Rayvon

[hartfw]

Since this is now pretty much a suggestion thread, adding the MP (and maybe a WRC) as a flat additional sum to ns is not the worst thing ever as an alternative, and was bounced around there before.

[hornguard]

Not sure on how we can control war chest sizes.

Tie in citizen happiness to how much money is on hand.  Above a certain point, the people are restless that money is being hoarded instead of being used on services.  Below a certain point, citizens worry about the solubility of the national gov't and could lower happiness/cause anarchy.  

[Dajobo]

I'm loving the discussion and ideas coming through in here.

If wonders added to your NS wouldn't that solve the problem of full wonder nations being able to hit new players in a far more simple way?

My nation for example has 31 wonders. If each wonder was one thousand NS then at ZI and ZT I'm still 31,000NS +.

[Auctor]

I'm loving the discussion and ideas coming through in here.

If wonders added to your NS wouldn't that solve the problem of full wonder nations being able to hit new players in a far more simple way?

My nation for example has 31 wonders. If each wonder was one thousand NS then at ZI and ZT I'm still 31,000NS +.

 

 

The problem with that is you get 31k free NS that can't be taken away, so you can effectively updeclare/be downdeclared on in current terms in a much bigger way.

 

I don't really want to see situations where nations with 1k infra/75 tech can declare on nations with much more expensive infra/tech/fewer wonders and do way more expensive damage to them than they can themselves take.

[Mandrivia_2]

 

 

I might have missed the reasoning, but why can't two plus nations on the same IP not play the game if they do not aid, trade, war, not in same alliance etc.  or interact with each other in any way?  

Nice, did this suggestion finally change Admin's mind? :P

[The Pansy]

Wouldn't a simpler answer just be to have a period of time that a new nation couldn't be hit by a nuclear nation/weapon, to give them a chance to get into the game, ie a period of 90 days, so as on an aggressive build plan they have a chance to be nuclear themselves ?

Edited July 2, 2014 by The Pansy

[hartfw]

 

 

The problem with that is you get 31k free NS that can't be taken away, so you can effectively updeclare/be downdeclared on in current terms in a much bigger way.

 

I don't really want to see situations where nations with 1k infra/75 tech can declare on nations with much more expensive infra/tech/fewer wonders and do way more expensive damage to them than they can themselves take.

 

I would just make a MP 5k (10k?) NS, and anything besides possibly a WRC nothing.

[Dajobo]

 

I would just make a MP 5k (10k?) NS, and anything besides possibly a WRC nothing.

That could work or even expanding slightly just put a value on military wonders. Basically the only real issue is that people with MP's etc shouldn't be able to hit new players.

[Lord Hershey]

That could work or even expanding slightly just put a value on military wonders. Basically the only real issue is that people with MP's etc shouldn't be able to hit new players.

Why not have new players (with 5 wonders or less, assuming you don't have a MP) be immune to aggressive nuclear nations' nukes that are taking on new players' defensive slots? A new player who takes on a nuclear nation's defensive slot will be exposed to a nuclear attack by the nuclear defender.

[Sephiroth]

I think any encounters new players might have with someone who has a MP would motivate them more into getting one themself. Initially my main goal as a nation ruler was to become nuclear capable, which I first achieved by getting in the top 5%. Although the MP wonder came out shortly after, so I ended up buying it in time before my first major war where nukes were used heavily. (When I joined MK for the noCB War)

 

When I became King of FCC, I put programs in place to get all members up to 5k infra as soon as possible, then a program to get every member a MP who didn't have one yet after they had reached 5k infra with more aid.

 

So I think the power of MP motivates leaders to create aid programs which actually build up new nations, since anyone can be an effective fighter once they have one.

Edited July 3, 2014 by Methrage

[ChairmanHal]

What wonders are you referring to specifically? Can you make a suggestion box topic for this?

Your will, my hands.