[Mirreille]

Currently, all nations have access to all Wonders, improvements, resources, etc., given enough time in the game. This leads to a lack of individuality of nations, the only difference being which particular order you bought your wonders in. That can have a large effect when they interact, but it is haphazard and does not allow for enough player input in how their nations are developed, and there is little strategy involved at the individual or alliance level.

I suggest adding a group of wonders or improvements that are either indestructible, or so costly that it is impractical for nations to switch on a whim like you can do with labor camps or guerrilla camps. There are pros & cons of using each type or whether they are destructible or not, and that is something this thread can help develop a concensus on which is better.

The key to these wonders/improvements is the fact that you can only get ONE of this group, much like how you can only get the Moon or the Mars wonders, not both. This is where the strategy part would come in, as each nation would choose where they want an individual strength in. Having multiple types of individual strengths would add flavor and allow players to tailor their nations to their personal preferences. Some possibilities:

1. A plus happiness or $$ wonder. (econ focus)
2. A % modifier to battles, offensive or defensive. (military focus)
3. A discount to spy ops, and % bonus to same. (espionage focus)
4. A +1 happiness to your nation and to each trade partner for having a trade agreement. Negates the econ penalty for trading off color for you and your partners, or acts as an econ boost for having in color trades. (trade focus)
5. A bonus senate vote or votes. (political focus)
6. A bonus to construction/maintenance. Like the Interstate, but possibly extending to other types of purchases/expenses. (industrial focus)

The exact numbers can be determined by Admin, to balance as he sees fit. You can make this as simple or as complicated as you wish; the military and industrial focus could easily be split into several specialities, or you could make these prerequisites for more focused wonders/improvements later and thus create a path of development. The main point is to allow the players more flexibility and choices without making things too complicated for this to be added. Even moderate bonuses should have an effect if you can only choose one focus.

[Rasputin]

Royal Seal of the Tsar

Quote

Negates the econ penalty for trading off color for you and your partners

Note that it is not a penalty for trading off-color, but a bonus for trading on-color, that the player receives. Nonetheless, whether negating a penalty or providing a bonus makes little difference.

[energizer]

Hm, like the overall concept, and I think its a good simple way to finally allow specialization (something the admin is very touchy with, so it seems)

just a couple of questions however; How would a nation choose their focus? Would it be through government position, just buying a selected improvement, etc...

you mentioned these improvements to be costly; but to what range exactly? Because as of now, every improvement is designed to allow any nation in the early game to easily get without much investment. Or would this kind of improvement be bridge-like in prices between wonders and improvements?

[Seerow]

Extra senate votes is actually a cool idea. I'm suddenly upset I never thought of it before. Some way to increase senate presence at the expense of other things is something I hope comes out of this suggestion.

A new set of improvement trees would be something nice to see added to the game. The problem we have currently is people quickly get to the point where they have every improvement in the game and no longer have anything to buy.

The problem that comes with just adding more however is it creates a lot of inflation on the econ side, and to make people go for a military improvement rather than econ the improvement has to be pretty immense.


I really think the answer rather than making whole new sets of improvements is to uncap the ones we have already, and make improvements cost more the more you have. It solves basically all of the problems at once. It forces choice on people because you no longer have the "buy all econ improvements then start buying military" because you theoretically never run out of econ, but a pure econ nation should get trashed by a mostly military nation. It adds diversity, and it avoids needing to develop a whole new improvement set which will just be added to the cycle and eventually everyone will have them all.

just my 2 cents.

[Mirreille]

Energizer, I was deliberately vague as to how to exactly handle this in my OP; maybe that was a mistake. There are a couple ways you could go about this, and there are advantages/disadvantages to both. I know Admin has been touchy about specialization, so I wanted this to be flexible, and preferably simple.

Nations would choose their focus by buying one of these wonders or improvements. Whether to make them destructible or not is one point. I think they should be cheap and indestructible, or very expensive and destructible, if you prefer people to be allowed to change focuses. By expensive I mean somewhere in between imp. and wonder costs, say $5-10 M. That way you could not change focuses willy-nilly, or at least without paying a fair price for it.

Now if they are indestructible, you are making a final choice, so the cost you set for it is only going to affect how large a nation is able to afford these. If you make them very cheap, then even new nations can buy one, which can help newer nations catch up a bit to the older ones, but not too much. Similarly, the only reason to make it a wonder rather then a improvement is to include aquiring this costing a nation 30 days of wonder clock time. If these end up as indestructible wonders, you could make the cost almost $0, and brand new nations could choose one right away.

Seerow, I think you and Energizer both may have missed the main point I am aiming for; you get ONE of these, so you can't get the others. I like making them permanent myself, but if people want to be able to switch them I guess that is possible, but it should come at a real cost. I am not too concerned with inflation myself, This is more to allow players to customize their nations a little bit. If someone takes an economic option, they forego any of the other options and will be at a disadvantage to the others in their focus area. Maybe one particular focus will end up being what people say is the "best" choice, but if we do it right all of the choices should be at least interesting. If this were implemented I honestly don't know which of these would interest me the most, which is what I want.

You could make this more complicated, like making it a two tier system; e.g. have the first level of military focus be general, and the second level be a particular branch of military. I would rather keep it simpler though if possible.

[crazymatty]

I like this idea...it could even be a an option under "My Government Position" that is permanent. You set it when you create your nation and that is it.

Seems it would be easy to add.

[Markus Wilding]

Not every government stays the same. True, our rulers may be immortal, but they can always be influenced by outside forces. If the country is democratic, then the president will no doubt change the government's position on certain things.

[TypoNinja]

The biggest trick would be balancing it so that we don't end up with a "best" option no matter what, 5 options with 4 being forever ignored would be pretty pointless.

[thedestro]

Agree 100%. Having something that permanently sets apart nations from others in a unique path like the suggested resource wonders is something highly recommended from myself.

But you have to keep a balance in this one. Like if there's an option to reduce infra upkeep, you already know 80% of people will go for that, so we can't have one like that. And regardless of which options we decide on, they all must be as balanced as possible, because the objective is for players to pick the option best tailored for their nation (or just their favorite) without having to worry if their choice wasn't "the best pick." In which case there should be no "best pick" because the balance would negate any possible advantages.

Furthermore the cost formula for these very valuable wonders should be variable, like the Moon/Mars wonders so nations from all sizes can decide their path early on.

------
Who says we can't find the balance in the numbers ourselves? So to first find the balance we need to establish a proportional base to apply to the rest, and it seems easiest if we start with the military stuff.

This post has been edited by thedestro: 02 October 2009 - 10:09 AM

[Mirreille]

I understand the concern for balance, it's just going to be difficult in a lot of cases to do so. The benefits I gave to the political and trade focuses for example are somewhat unique, so how to put a $$ value on them? Players who don't chose those will never get to have those advantages, unless the destructible version is used.

[ender land]

I really would like to see something like this.

The only real specialization that happens in CN so far is when you have the choice between "Best eco wonder" and "Best mil wonder." By the time you hit the "mars/moon" choice it really doesn't matter.

[Kwarsh]

Interesting, I like it. The only thing I would have a problem with would be that new nations who know nothing about the game being able to choose/buy an option because it is so cheep and regret it down the line when they realize they don't like the path they choose. I would make it so that at a nations 100 day they could choose one for free or very low cost.

[thedestro]

Kaleb Rockefeller, on Oct 2 2009, 10:13 PM, said:

Interesting, I like it. The only thing I would have a problem with would be that new nations who know nothing about the game being able to choose/buy an option because it is so cheep and regret it down the line when they realize they don't like the path they choose. I would make it so that at a nations 100 day they could choose one for free or very low cost.

I see the prices as being like the Moon Wonders, as being much cheaper for smaller nations but still too expensive for any newb to buy.

[Slayer1557]

Quote

1. A plus happiness or $$ wonder. (econ focus)
2. A % modifier to battles, offensive or defensive. (military focus)
3. A discount to spy ops, and % bonus to same. (espionage focus)
4. A +1 happiness to your nation and to each trade partner for having a trade agreement. Negates the econ penalty for trading off color for you and your partners, or acts as an econ boost for having in color trades. (trade focus)
5. A bonus senate vote or votes. (political focus)
6. A bonus to construction/maintenance. Like the Interstate, but possibly extending to other types of purchases/expenses. (industrial focus)

Just to make some attempted-balanced effects and put them on the table for discussion.

1. +5 happiness or +10$ (This specifically CANNOT be a larger amount than the benefit from the trade imp/wonder*)
2. +1 Ship limit(per type), +5 plane limit, +2 nuke limit, cannot put self into anarchy by deploying too many soldiers(only during war, not having enough out of war WILL anarchy).
3. 25% discount on spy ops(maybe more), +10% spy strength, +1 to max limit of spy operations an enemy can receive.**
4. +$3 income, and you give all your trade partners +$3 income.***
5. I'm not quite sure how to balance extra senate votes. Maybe your vote is worth 5? Maybe you automatically get +10 votes for yourself each senate election? Suggestions?
6. -5% construction cost(to ALL, yes including wonders, think long term compared to the econ or trade focuses) and -2% infra upkeep****

*Because it is harder to get a trade circle set up with all people having the trade specialty, the straight econ imp/wonder is the "easy" way out and has to be worth less.

**Meaning If you have the espionage focus, it doesn't give you more spy operations, but you can use up to 3 on a single opponent. This limit of 3 is for all people with the espionage focus. So if you receive 3 spy attacks from someone, someone else with the espionage focus cannot spy on you, because you have already been spied on 3 times that day.

***So, in the best case, if you trade with only other people who are trade specialized, you make a total of +18$. Note: This is significantly higher than the straight economic focus because it is much harder to find a trade circle with all trade focused people, so once you trade with 3 other people with the trade focus, you break even with the economic focus.

****I understand that you don't want to reduce the infra upkeep much because then everyone would get it, but a small percentage would make it enough for people to consider the other focuses over this one.



So this is my input. Thoughts? suggestions? balances?

This post has been edited by Slayer1557: 03 October 2009 - 12:36 PM

[Jinnai]

Slayer1557, on Oct 3 2009, 07:33 PM, said:

Just to make some attempted-balanced effects and put them on the table for discussion.

1. +5 happiness or +10$ (This specifically CANNOT be a larger amount than the benefit from the trade imp/wonder*)
2. +1 Ship limit(per type), +5 plane limit, +2 nuke limit, cannot put self into anarchy by deploying too many soldiers(only during war, not having enough out of war WILL anarchy).
3. 25% discount on spy ops(maybe more), +10% spy strength, +1 to max limit of spy operations an enemy can receive.**
4. +$3 income, and you give all your trade partners +$3 income.***
5. I'm not quite sure how to balance extra senate votes. Maybe your vote is worth 5? Maybe you automatically get +10 votes for yourself each senate election? Suggestions?
6. -5% construction cost(to ALL, yes including wonders, think long term compared to the econ or trade focuses) and -2% infra upkeep****

*Because it is harder to get a trade circle set up with all people having the trade specialty, the straight econ imp/wonder is the "easy" way out and has to be worth less.

**Meaning If you have the espionage focus, it doesn't give you more spy operations, but you can use up to 3 on a single opponent. This limit of 3 is for all people with the espionage focus. So if you receive 3 spy attacks from someone, someone else with the espionage focus cannot spy on you, because you have already been spied on 3 times that day.

***So, in the best case, if you trade with only other people who are trade specialized, you make a total of +18$. Note: This is significantly higher than the straight economic focus because it is much harder to find a trade circle with all trade focused people, so once you trade with 3 other people with the trade focus, you break even with the economic focus.

****I understand that you don't want to reduce the infra upkeep much because then everyone would get it, but a small percentage would make it enough for people to consider the other focuses over this one.



So this is my input. Thoughts? suggestions? balances?

#4 is way overbalanced as it'll be quite easy to get since it'll just be put at or near the top of everyone's wonder list thus increasing inflation far beyond any wonder in existence to date. The effects would put every other economic wonder that increase revenue to shame.

This post has been edited by Jinnai: 03 October 2009 - 04:07 PM

[TypoNinja]

Slayer1557, on Oct 3 2009, 02:33 PM, said:

****I understand that you don't want to reduce the infra upkeep much because then everyone would get it, but a small percentage would make it enough for people to consider the other focuses over this one.

For anybody looking at long term growth infra upkeep will almost always win out, some of our higher end nations might want to chime in here, but as you grow infra upkeep becomes a seriously disproportionate part of your bills, even with LC's.

We'd be better off I think with two paths to start with, the divisions everybody is used to, and expanding from there, so to start with, two new wonders. One for an econ line, one for a military line. After that, we can further subdivide them as necessary, to further customize the paths, these path's either opening up new wonders, new improvements, or perhaps even both.

Their bonuses need to be visible but not overwhelming, econ paths are easier to balance becuase money is money, but the military path is more difficult becuase we don't want to make it impossible for someone who did not take the military path to beat someone who did.

Industrial Complex and Military Complex can be our umbrella wonders, the starting point down your chosen path.

They need baseline bonuses that should reflect their generic nature, infra upkeep is not generic enough, happiness bonuses are too specific. I imagine something like this.

I.C.
A National establishment bent on the internal infrastructure of your nation, applied research and massive capital investments give you the edge when it comes to production, expanding your existing infrastructure base, and its maintenance.

Doubles natural land growth, -10% upkeep of improvements and wonders (maybe infra upkeep too, but a token about 2 or 3% I'm thinking.) Infra and and land purchase price -5%

M.C.
A National establishment bent on the expansion of your armed forced, applied research, aggressive recruiting, and a massive backing of military contractors gives you the edge in military conflict.

All military upkeeps reduced 5%, all military purchase costs reduced 5%

Then we add an improvement or two, theres no point it adding a stack of five because they'd all be bought at once anyway, one improvement that gives the whole bonus would do it, keeping in mind its unique to this path it should lean towards the mini-wonder scale. So it costing a mil or 5 while doing something medium sized would be just fine.

Subdivisions from IC/MC are easy;
IC turns into population, infra, or happiness/income
MC divides down to GA, airforce, navy.

The beauty of this is its very scalable, you can work out one level at a time, and then work out improvements at each level, and then a new wonder for another subdivision.

[Slayer1557]

Quote

Then we add an improvement or two, theres no point it adding a stack of five because they'd all be bought at once anyway, one improvement that gives the whole bonus would do it, keeping in mind its unique to this path it should lean towards the mini-wonder scale. So it costing a mil or 5 while doing something medium sized would be just fine.

Nonsense, a stack of 5 is significant in that you still have to have the population to buy them. It may not matter for large nations, but it does matter for most nations. I'm not necessarily promoting a 5 stack, but a 2 or 3 would not be unreasonable, depending on the bonus.

This post has been edited by Slayer1557: 03 October 2009 - 04:44 PM

[TypoNinja]

Slayer1557, on Oct 3 2009, 06:43 PM, said:

Nonsense, a stack of 5 is significant in that you still have to have the population to buy them. It may not matter for large nations, but it does matter for most nations. I'm not necessarily promoting a 5 stack, but a 2 or 3 would not be unreasonable, depending on the bonus.

Its significant in the fact that the first tier of bonuses are nothing to write home about, None of these are going to be anybodies first choice for wonders, SSS ISS DRA, all blow these speciality wonders out of the water, these wonders are unique because they are a gateway to customization of a nation that has already peaked out, wonder and improvement discounts are chump change, military upkeep and purchasing costs are similarly small upgrades. We are establishing a trend of reinforcing bonuses here.

These wonders are significant not for what they do but for where they lead you.

[Mirreille]

While I originally thought a path would be the best approach too, that might be asking too much. The simpler we can keep it the better the chances of this every being a reality. Alos, the intent isn't to make them overpowering, just to spice things up a good bit.

Slayer1557, I think your starting numbers are too high. +2 nukes per day is just...whoa. Plus the $18 from the trade focus is too much, I agree with Jinnai there. One thing I realised is since the trade focus has a little special ability worked into it, the econ focus should give you more income then the trade focus. The trade focus makes up for the lesser income from the flexibility it offers. The industrial types should be in rough balance with whatever number the econ focus works out to be. The military focus can be very flexible, as there are a number of approaches you can take with that one, I'm sure we can balance that eventually. The political focus is quite an oddball, no real way to correlate that with the others I am afraid. That is how I see them relative to each other. I like the +5 or +10 votes for the political focus myself, but I thought if I suggested that people would scream about being disenfranchised or something.

TheDestro, you might be missing some of the possibilities here. If you make them permanent and ultra cheap, you could have new nations choosing a military focus, and being more effective as a low level guerilla fighter. If they go econ they can make up some ground on the largest nations. I don't see any problems with making these available to brand new nations, they usually don't use a wonder slot for six months or so, so they could make good use of that time by getting one of these. Now scaling them like the Moon & mars wonders is a possibility too and I don't have a problem with that either.

[Slayer1557]

You misunderstood, I didnt mean +2 nukes per day, I mean +2 to the maximum you can keep, meaning 22 normally or 27 with the HNMS.

The way I imagine trading focus to work is that you get more benefit from carefully working your trades. Which is why I suggested the increased benefit from trading with other people who chose the trading specialty. And then make the benefit large enough to balance the risk of not being able to find enough people who are trading specialized. The $18 is only an upper limit, and I think it would be difficult to get both a team of all trade focused nations and still have a good trade set.

I do not feel that the benefit of having the trade bonus, regardless of team color, is worth enough to justify making the economic focus worth more. I personally don't think it is hard to find trades within one's own color. That can still be a benefit to the trade focus, but I think the trade focus needs to be rewarded for managing your trades properly.

Think of it this way, the economic focus is to increase income from within, and the trade focus is to increase income from other nations, so to speak.

I agree with you Mirreille, that it should be a wonder available to new nations. Not necessarily BRAND new nations, maybe making a requirement of having a nation be 10 days old. This gives them some time to understand the game before they make a game changing decision.

I don't really have a position on whether to make them permanent+cheap or scaling. I wouldn't mind it either way, but I like that new nations should be able to take part.