Right now Foreign Aid Commissions are of extremely low value right now; some alliances ban FAC users from entering their alliance. What ideas would be good to improve FACs?

My own suggestion would be to simply increase the amount transferable to $9m. This would give it some minimal utility. Alternatively, you could improve its tech pipeline to 100 tech per transfer; that would certainly get players to set up FAC-enabled tech farms.

Approved for discussion

The best idea? Make it so only the sender needs a FAC.

Wasn't the idea of the FAC to make it so larger nations could receive more money, but smaller nations could not?

If anything make it so that only the receiver needs the FAC.

I agree with Riyzar(whom I've quoted just below), that the reciver should be the on required.






This also looks good, but thinking about it, Riyzar's idea might be better.

i really like this... because it takes to long to complete tech deals, and takes up un-needed slots.

I actually have some great ideas for this wonder that I would like to see implemented

1) Price increased to $60,000,000
2) Enables secret aid, the source of which can only be revealed by spying on the sender of the aid. (i.e. you can make any foreign aid offer that you make a secret one in exchange for losing 10% of the max amount that can be sent.)
3) Allows one "special aid action" to be made every 30 days. Every time you make a "special aid action" its effects last for 30 days, like an event, and you cannot make another special action for 30 days. List of special actions:

-Give an event to any other nation (not your own) worth +3 happiness. This event takes up an event slot and lasts for 30 days.

-Negate the peacemode income penalty (not the happiness penalty) - for another nation (not your own). Does not work if you are in peacemode yourself. Takes up an event slot and lasts for 30 days. Prevents you from using peace mode while the "special aid action" is active.

-Negate the peacemode happiness penalty (not the income penalty) - for another nation (not your own). Does not work if you are in peacemode yourself. Takes up an event slot and lasts for 30 days. Prevents you from using peace mode while the "special aid action" is active.

The identity of the recipients of the special aid actions and the secret aid can only be revealed by a successful gather information spy mission on the sender.

Having aid slots expire sooner than 10 days would be an interesting bonus.

Change it so that if only the sender or receiver has the wonder, it increases the aid limit to 4 million/60 tech/3000 soldiers. If both nations have the wonder, the limit is increased to 10 million/150 tech/10,000 soldiers.

Allows someone to send secret aid that can only be found out by spying on the sender.

Increase the cost of the wonder to make it a appropriate (35 million?)

A couple fixes in bold and strikeouts. The cost, I don't know what it would be...

Making the FAC more useful would be great. Personally, I'd like to see either a) uncap the number of aid slots two nations can have with each other in a 10-day period if they both have a FAC, or b) allow people with a FAC to have an unlimited number of incoming aid slots, so long as the overall cap is still met.

a) would allow tech deals and such to be done instantly if both had it, it would just require more aid slots.

b) would be awesome because it would allow for bank nations to receive aid from anywhere. Small nations often would like to help out, but can't because their aid slots which would be giving up $10K (a lot of money to them) would not compete with the $3M max that someone could give. If you make the unlimited slots proposal, then they have a chance to help.

I don't know if the first idea (a) is original to me or not, but (b) has been voiced by others before.

Have an extra wonder (seperate to the FAC), for example called a 'great port', which provides the description listed above, requires an FAC and $25,000,000, so that current FACs aren't affected. Both nations need the wonder to trade at the listed amounts.
EDIT: A nation with the new wonder can send 6 mil and/or 100 tech even if the receiver doesn't have the wonder (this will not apply to the FAC).

How about 2 nations each with FAC can use all their aid slots on each other?

Well, in TE FAC gives +$7.00 citizen income, I think a income boost to go along with an aid boost would makes sense, which could put it more on par with the DRA, which is income boost+aid boost.

the aid-caps need rework anyway, why not simply use the FAC for it?

(DAC)Syzygy is right on the spot once again.

^this

It takes the wonder from being worthless to one of the best without any work

No, because you would create what the Admin wanted *intentionally* to avoid. New nations would simply get more starting aid to be boosted even faster.

And the real problems with the aid system (= aid totally useless in the upper ranks) would not be solved because 4.5M are *still* peanuts.

If you want to make the aid-system useful, you must use a scaled-up system that allows big nations to help (AID!) each other / pay for damages (Reps) with values they could actually use (15M, 50,000 soldiers) but at the same time permit to send such huge amounts downwards.

And that only works if you make it in a way that huge cash-amounts can only be RECEIVED with an FAC and huge tech amounts can only be SENT with an FAC. At the same time make the Requirements for FAC high enough to prevent new nations getting it as first wonder (Require StockMarket prior and at least 1,000 tech requirement + high cash price).

Endorsing any of the suggestions would be an improvement

The FAC needs SOMETHING to be changed about it, it is essentially useless as is. So please, please, PLEASE do something for the poor little thing!

If it could make secret aid, the FAC itself would need to be secret, or any alliance with an FAC would be suspected of funding enemies of some other alliance.

If it allows secret aid and only the receiver needs one, then we could see some really wild Peace Mode buildups.

But yes, right now the FAC is a lolwonder. I won't touch 'em and I'm glad my alliance has zero of them.

Buying an FAC is like voluntarily choosing to make one of your resources furs.

Well, its a great idea, but it won't work if you can't receive the large amounts of tech sent or send the large amounts of aid...

Unless you are stating that the limit for sending $$ be raised when sending to nations with FAC, and the limit for tech received be increased when someone with a FAC is sending?

Also, somethings that should be considered.

FAC should have a sending or receiving mode, with a 3 day delay to switch. Where the nation in question can send based on their scale (Can we make it blocks? So you can't send things like 6,678,923 $ as the max but rather an even 6,600,000??) or they can receive based on their scale.
Perhaps also a neutral mode, where you can do both, but if there is a neutral mode aid slots expire 2 days quicker depending on mode you are in?

The idea of giving wonders different "modes" for users to select would enable more customization and if a nation has sent out for 6 tech deals, they can then bring in all 600 tech potentially 4 days sooner.

Increase the price dramatically and have the FAC change the aid sending rule back to allowing 1/3 of what one holds at one time. Or as someone else said:


Or just bring back the 1/3 rule again for everything. Sure, there may be an increase in price of tech deals but that may be a good thing >_>

I partially disagree that it's "useless" (everybody in the high ranks buy Tech with it), and I also disagree that it's a "problem" altogether. Upper ranks already have a big advantage, why should they be helped even more?
I'd support a use of the FAC to help small and mid-sized Nations to grow faster, but with some "limit" that would still leave it "useless" for big Nations...
An idea could be to make the Aid cap to be based on Infra level (or Tech/infra ratio), penalizing big Nations, but I'm sure that something better can be elaborated.

Of course it does work.

If a nation with no FAC wants to aid a nation with no FAC, the limit is 3M + 50tech + 2000soldiers.
If a nation with FAC wants to aid a nation with no FAC, the limit is 3M + 50tech + senders_tech*0.05 + 2000soldiers.
If a nation with no FAC wants to aid a nation with FAC, the limit is $1000*receivers_infra + 50tech + 2000soldiers.
If a nation with FAC wants to aid a nation with FAC, the limit is $1000*receivers_infra + 50tech + senders_tech*0.05 + 2000soldiers.

It is 'useless' in terms of covering damages or help each other during war.

To be honest, if a nation with 18,000 infra loses 1,000 infra during a war, no way any aid could help him to cover even parts of these damages. Because the damage is 800 Million and the maximum aid 18M every 10days. A nation with only 3,000 infra will have all their damages covered with a few packs.

The same goes for mutual assistance to keep nations our of bill_lock or anything. My bills for example are 19M per day. Even a *full* delivery of 18M would not even enable me to pay bills for *one* day. While smaller nations can always cooperate and assist each other, big nations can simply not because their bills *greatly* outnumber the maximum aid capacities. Just make it fair for everyone (and a lot more realistically) that big nations just can do bigger deals if they want.

And "advantage" is the wrong word. They would simply get what all smaller nations already *have*, plus "pushing" high-infra nations with aid to enable them to grow even faster would be a terrible economical decision for any alliance - because the same 50M that are transferred could buy 10x more infra at smaller nations AND that infra would be a lot more lucrative (because it would pay for itself at some point, what highlevel infra *never* does).

Now that is a much easier to follow post.

Ok, makes more sense, thanks Syzygy.

But also something to consider would then be soldiers, because as of now sending soldiers are kinda pointless no matter how big you are. If its increased then someone with 1000 soldiers, outta cash and already collected could be aided enough to stay outta anarchy

I would increas soldier-aid with the Pentagon-Wonder. If you have it, you can send 2 soldiers per infralevel over 1,000 infra + the 2000 base.
= 4000 soldiers if you have 2000 infra
= 10000 soldiers if you have 5000 infra
= 20000 soldiers if you have 10000 infra
= 40000 soldiers if you have 20000 infra

I agree this would be great, but for the bolded part it sould be capped at 3mill, 50tech and 2000 soldiers minimum.

Lets say you have a nation with a FAC beaten down to 2000infra, you would only be able to send him 2million to help him rebuild, thus the presence of the FAC would slow the rebuild.

of course, I am talking only about "infra over 3,000". Sorry that I didn't make that more clear.

Changing them because some alliances ban them is not a good enough reason. Both nations should continue to need the wonder to get the benefit.

DAC's numbers work for me.

If we can't get rid of trade slots, at least have the FAC make them more productive.

And you know what? If we had nations growing faster because of higher-priced tech deals, that would be a good thing. More cash for tech also extends the life of tech dealers.

There are 139 FAC's on Planet Bob, 0.2% of all wonders. It's clearly something that should be either made more useful or removed.

Using (DAC)Syzygy's idea and adding the mimimums of $3M 50Tech and 2K soldiers suggested by Jack
Shepard gives the following four aid situations:

N - Nation has FAC
n - Nation without FAC

• n1 aids n2 : Limit is $3M 50T 2K
  
  
  • Same as current situation
  
  
• N1 aids n2 : Limit is $3M 50T+(N1 Tech * 0.05) 2K
  
  
  • FAC provides a bonus to the amount of tech, which would enhance
    tech deals. SO in this situation N1 would be a tech dealer, and
    n2 a buyer.
    
    
  • Using N1's tech however would require a Dealer to hold more tech
    which makes the tech more expensive so defeats the benefit of
    the bonus tech the RAC would provide in a transaction.
  
  
• n1 aids N2 : minimum of $3M 50T 2K
  maximum of $1K * (N2 Infra) 50T 2K
  
  • The bonus in this situation is in the cash cap, so it would
    logically apply to a Tech Buyer sending payment to a dealer.
    
    
  • As the dealer grows the amount of cash they can receive
    increases, theoretically this should make dealers spend more
    time selling tech.
    
    
  • The cap for cash as N2 Grows are: $1M for each 1K infra above 3K
    
    
  • An added bonus is that a large nation can receive larger cash
    aid, which greatly improves war aid situations for the top tier
    nations.
  
  
• N1 aids N2 : minimum of $3M 50T 2K
  maximum of $1K * (N2 Infra) 50T + (N1 Tech * 0.05) 2K

Honestly I don't see this really making the FAC more attractive. With
the bonus in tech transactions being based on the senders tech, it
would open a possibility of nations with large amounts of tech, and a
FAC to send very large shipments of tech to another nation, (and with
their receiving bonus they can receive a larger cash payment.

So it could help a nation just beginning to buy tech make a big jump,
but the problem is the seller in this situation would still be buying
that tech from a new nation at the same maximum of 50 tech per slot.


Perhaps we should just think of the problem in more of a supply and
demand sense:

The attractive part of the Current FAC is the possiblility of buying
75 tech per slot instead of 50. The drawback is that it requires that
a new nation be aided $25M as early as possible.

Using the current statistics it's obvious that the benefits of such a
strategy are not worth the drawbacks.

So perhaps a simple approach would be more effective. Llower the price
of the FAC to increase demand. Perhaps even raising the cap to $6M 100
Tech as well?

tl;dr Lower the Price according to the law of supply and demand

Even better. Nerf it and give everyone their money back and a shot at buying a wonder to replace it without disrupting their current wonder cycle, one time only, expires in 30 days.

I'm going to ask the silly but obvious question:

What was Federal Aid Commission suppose to be emulating from real life? Not, "what it does in the game mechanics?" (already explained) but what real world thing is it modeled after?

Know that, you can begin to fix the problem with FAC. The rest of this conversation frankly may be a waste of time, with all due respect, until Admin speaks up.

yeah if slot will expire in 5 days it's so good. actually this is good idea that we can example send 9mil so we can do the better donation with other. and I think this idea is good plus this: if one nation want to send money more that $9mil he must pay extra money to Cyber nation (i mean money in game) example:
per 5mil nation must pay 2mil extra mean: 14 mil the secound nation recived and first nation pay 2 mil extra)

I'd say big nations should be able to increase the amount of aid they can send if they buy an FAC. 3mil is a ridiculously low amount today. I don't see anything wrong with allowing smaller nations to be aided up faster. We have nations with over 20k infra so it's not like small nations will instantly be large just because of the increased aid they would recieve.

If the FAC doubled the amount of tech and money you could send and recieve it would go from being one of the worst wonders in the game to one of the better ones.

To answer ChairmanHal's question, all I can see good with the FAC is to use it to pay reps to a curbstomping alliance faster, provided the winning alliance has them, as well. Otherwise, why would two huge nations want to shift aid to each other? And as a first wonder for a tech farm, that makes sense only if a nation intends to be a permanent tech farm, which quite frankly smacks of being a multi.

If it's intended to emulate the ability of our government to move around huge sums of money in totally ineffective ways, I'd say it's spot on in that emulation. If it's intended to complement the Disaster Relief Agency and move extra stuff across those existing aid slots to just anyone, I'd say it falls short of that goal by being required at both ends.

If it was set so the FAC was needed only to SEND those bigger shipments, it would be way cool. 100 tech could go for $4.5 million and the tech-selling world would rejoice. Heck, maybe then the little sellers would save up for a FAC so they could send more tech to their big brothers and do deals for 150 tech over 20/30 days instead of 100.

Having an FAC set to be needed only to SEND that much aid would enhance gameplay and enrich all of our digital lives. Without that tweak, the FAC is something to buy after getting every other wonder and 18K infrastructure, if then.

Perhaps taking a new role for such a wonder could happen, why not be able to simply cut down your foreign aid time from 10 days to 6-7 days? This is simply useful in some nations who do a lot of aid, but not completely overkill. Oh and balance it bring price up to 34 mil.

That's a bit high. The only decrease I'd like to see is from 10 days to 9 days (8 days max). 6-7 days is making a large nations tech speed into it's nation almost double.

anything to make it worthwhile would be great. As it currently stands it will be the last wonder I ever buy.

so at end? what's the result? and what's the final opinion fron CN?

some day you must buy it, because there is nothing else left

I'd rather have an additional 25 Mil in my warchest then a worthless Wonder I have to pay bills on.

No. You buy it because it's your way of saying to Admin, "HEY! I RAN OUT OF COOL THINGS TO BUY! MAKE MORE WONDERS, MMMKAY?"

Believe me I'm about to, I'm left with only the MP, FSS, and FAC. So I'm hoping admin gives us some new things to spend some cash on or else makes the FAC useful as some of the suggestions in here have stated.

admin keeps adding new wonders/other stuff to keep us busy before we run out

then he better is quick with that: People like Bubbler run out of wonders in 3 months

So are we aiming for a full page of not discussing the topic of this thread?

I think we're at the point now where we bump it for a month or so until the Admin says he'll think about it, like with the proposal to get rid of aid slots altogether and just make a cap on the maximum amount of aid a nation could send out in a 10-day period.