Opening:

Firstly something which has always existed in the real world and is also present in this nation simulator is the ability one nations military has to destroy another nations infrastructure. This is both beneficial in the sense of adding to the simulation and also the fun derived from "blowing $&*@ up". However where these two realities part ways is in the latter phases, the rebuilding phase of a war. In a war in this nation simulator all destroyed infrastructure is irreperable and must be built anew, and the citizens which inhabited the lands vanish into thin air. Whereas in the real world such a reality is unfeasible and unheard of. To the contrary working citizens flee the warzones and are temporarily "displaced" and infrastructure on occasions is merely "damaged" and can possibly be salvaged or built over.

What this means is that a defeated party in the real world will not be immobilised for extremely long periods of time. Even in the most destructive war in its time the parties involved in WW1 didn't wait very long to start a new and even more destructive war. This has to do largely with the nations ability to rebuild after warfare.

Suggestion:

As infrastructure plays such an important role to a nation it being so unrealistically vulnerable to warfare is damaging to the game. It can also mean that a small group could dominate the game by alternating between different targets in different phases of rebuilding indefinitely. In turn ruining perhaps the most entertaining aspect of the game. Fighting wars.

Basically what I'm suggesting is the following figures.

25% of infrastructure damaged in war is irreperable.
50% of infrastructure damaged can be repaired at -40% infra costs.
25% of infrastructure damaged can be repaired at -20% infra costs.

This would greatly reduce rebuilding times and as such mean that the politics of the game would not stagnate in between "curbstomps".


Edited:
To make it less dense.

Approved for discussion.

so rebuilding is cheaper than brand new infra? sounds good to me

If it sparks some action in this universe then I'm all for it.

Yes!

I really like this idea.

I like this idea a lot.

When you already have the improvements and wonders from pre-war, I don't think another advantage should be given for rate of building, even if it is re-building. War should have consequences regardless of how you got involved.

it's a good idea, but some modifications may be required.

for example how will the "war" be determined? if you are being attacked by only one person, then it is obvious how much infra was lost, therefore determining the 20% or 40% reduction. but in a 2v1 or 3v1, infra is being taken away by all parties, so how is the reduction calculated in that case?

How about a doing this with a wonder?

It would keep track of your high water mark of infra.

if you have 10% below the high water mark, infra is 10% cheaper... 20% below = 20% cheaper down to 90% below = 90% cheaper etc.

hmm that's a good idea. a wonder would make it easier to keep track of. of course, there would need to be safeguards in place. a nation at 12k infra could sell off down to 6k or so and stay there. he could then attack people in his range and build up much easier than the other person. it might be an uncommon war strategy, but i wouldnt put it past some to do that to gain the upper hand

In many cases improvements are destroyed due to the high cost to maintain. And although wonders help, there are a large proportion of nations who will be destroyed before seeing their first wonder. This also adds to the realism and an end to stagnation.

Whatever leads to more wars, I'm for.

This is a sound idea. I approve.

I'm more for 50% rebougt infra at normal cost, 30% rebought infra at 80% normal cost and 20% infra at 60% cost.
But yeah i'm all for this concept since it wouldn't make post-war periods so hard (with how high the reps are these days) and may generally deduct from the general fear of war, encouraging it.

A shorter period in which a nation can rebuild to pre-war glories means that nations/alliances percived as a threat and thus warred upon can become a threat once again in short order.

Whilst I support this priciple of faster rebuilding it makes me wonder if wars will be prosecuted for longer to ensure nations can not bounce right back and/or surrender terms and reparations adjusted to cancel out this risk for the victor?

M6

I agree with this idea in theory. It needs fine tuning but, would make things better and a lot more fun.

Make it so.

That is all.

Good idea.

Looks like a good idea, I approve.

More war?
Sounds good. I support this movement for more war.

I support this wholeheartedly. The reason that everyone is terrified of war is because infra is such a pain to buy. Decrease the cost of infra means more wars (and more activity).

Thumbs up from me, should be a fantastic addition to the game.

I support this. Most nations are afraid of war because infra takes years to build and days to destroy. If it were easier to rebuild, we could get some more wars going on.

^^^^^I like this suggestion, but I don't think it should be a wonder, I think it should be available to every nation from the moment they start playing.

No one's saying the consequences are going to be eliminated. Far from it. This is just to add another more realistic aspect to the game. Obviously some infra is going to be damaged beyond repair, as the OP said.



I agree, do a degree... Actually, I think it should measure the high mark---but if someone sells any infra, the high mark is reduced by whatever amount they sell.

Actually it is moving away from reality. After a war the rubble must be cleared, patches of ground cleared from munitions, displaced citizens need at the very least temporary shelter and so on.

In reality rebuilding is more expensive.

I like suggestions to give another boost to the game, but I'm not sure this is the way to go.

sounds like a fantastic Idea. I approve and endorse this idea.

Rebuilding is not necessarily more expensive. Take the example of a bombed road, it may be useless in its entirety, but you only need to patch the big hole, you don't need to plan a route, clear trees, level ground, etc. Or if power lines are downed, chances are not every post or tower is destroyed, and while the damaged power system provides no benefit to your nation, you only really need to replace the parts that are damaged to make it work again. Plus, you may be able to reuse or sell damaged infrastructure if you take the time to clear and recover it.

You already have extra improvements/wonders to help you out.

I support this idea. I don't think the rl costs could really be quantified for new build vs refurbishment on the scale we're talking about because of the sheer number of different entities involved in both cases. But I think the reality argument is outweighed by the value this would add to the game anyway.

My perspective is that we are trying to keep people playing the game and I can only see this helping.

I like the idea, though I think trying to parallel Real World scenarios is very flawed.

This is a simulator, if an effort were made to make all aspects more realistic most of Planet Bob would be screaming bloody murder.

I agree with that somewhat. I even considered removing that part completely. This is most as others have said something that would add to the game.

I think there should be both a general discount (say 20%) on already bought infra, plus a wonder (the high water 10%/10%, 20%/20% etc thing)

Not even for more war - think about it, it's realistic.

Someone blows up a railroad. You still have the raw materials, they're just strewn all over, some of them are unusable, but some just need to be rearranged. It won't cost the same amount.

EDIT FOR CLARITY:

Fantastic idea, I support.

I love the idea. It makes the game more realistic, and prevents nations from being completely destroyed by warfare.

I am unconvinced. Call me old fashioned but there is an upper limit to how much infra someone will buy in this game. It is governed by cost to build/upkeep vs return. Losing 6K infra in a single 3-1 war is not unreasonable at higher levels. While conventional planning might allow you to rebuild this easily, consider how much savings this would be for someone at a top tier level. This would unbalance the game towards top tier people who would have less incentive for saving. As a result I must decline to acknowledge this offer as good.

I like this idea, but I think that the infra that nukes destroy should be completely gone as a nuke basically makes everything impossible to use anyways either by destroying it or through radiation.

I like this idea. I do however understand how some think that this would benefit the high infra nations as during a war they don't lose a high percentage of their infra even if they do lose a large amount. To rectify this i think that nations with high infra should suffer more damage from cruise missiles and nukes. Instead of the capped amount of damage a cruise missile can cause, 15 infra with improvements which is pathetic even to my nations which just crossed 5k infra, nations lose a certain percentage of their infra from cruise missiles so that larger nations suffer an amount of damage that actually makes cruise missiles effective. This is a realistic concept as well as a nation with high infra would have their infra more clustered so more would be destroyed, think of a missile hitting New York vs hitting a much smaller city.

I love this idea

I do like the proposal, how ever I think the figures should be changed slightly.



Instead of the above I think figures closer to those below would be better.

40% of infrastructure damaged in war is irreperable.
40% of infrastructure damaged can be repaired at -40% infra costs.
20% of infrastructure damaged can be repaired at -20% infra costs.

I completely disagree with this. Higher ranks NEED to sit on heaps and heaps of cash to suriveve a full blown out nuclear war, given that they have to pay double-triple or more for buying back their military when fighting. They'll need less when they rebuild sure, but they'll have lost a ton of cash on the war itself not to mention they will possibly have reps to pay.

I'm not giving this a big priority, i think fixing the looting system for example would be way more important, but this could encourage war a bit and it really isn't that unbalanced.

Those figures seem a little more reasonable.

Don´t make it to easy to rebuild Infra,
25% of infrastructure damaged in war is irreperable.

XX% of infrastructure damaged can be repaired at -XX% infra costs.

Scale the latter to the Infra a nation lost in war to the peak Infra a nation had. That means the less Infra a nation had and the more it lost the cheaper it is to rebuild. That will benefit the smaller nations a lot more. And scale the reduction factor so that it is higher at the start and lower to end when you are close to rebuild 100%.

Example: The lost infra here is the actually destroyed ony, you can rebuild up to 75% of.

10k Infra nation lost 1k Infra, starting factor is 10% x base reduction for the first X% Infra and it will be lesser for every new rebuilt Infra up to 0% x base reduction when you finished to rebuild 750K Infra.


More starting factors as suggestion and example, same procedure
40K Infra nation lost 1k Infra, starting factor is 0.25 x 2.5% = 0.625% x base reduction
40K Infra nation lost 5k Infra, starting factor is 0.25 x 12.5% = 3.125% x base reduction
40K Infra nation lost 40k Infra, starting factor is 0.25 x 100% = 25% x base reduction

20K Infra nation lost 1k Infra, starting factor is 0.5 x 5% = 2.5% x base reduction
20K Infra nation lost 5k Infra, starting factor is 0.5 x 25% = 12.5% x base reduction
20K Infra nation lost 20k Infra, starting factor is 0.5 x 100% = 50% x base reduction

10K Infra nation lost 1k Infra, starting factor is 1 x 10% x base reduction
10K Infra nation lost 5k Infra, starting factor is 1 x 50% x base reduction
10K Infra nation lost 10k Infra, starting factor is 1 x 100% x base reduction

5K Infra nation lost 1k Infra,starting factor is 1.5 x 20% = 30% x base reduction
5K Infra nation lost 5k Infra, starting factor is 1.5 x 100% = 150% x base reduction

1K Infra nation lost 500 Infra, starting factor is 2 x 50% = 100% x base reduction
1K Infra nation lost 1k Infra, starting factor is 2 x 100% = 200% x base reduction


This scaling will have three effects, you have to decide between instantly rebuild = less profitable but to hurt your enemy or wait until the war is over and rebuild big time = more profitable.
The second effect would be you need less cash at the begining = faster rebuilding at the start, slows down to the finish.
Third effect, it would benefit smaller nations more than bigger nations and that reflects the advantage of the nations with more wonders too.
A big nation with many wonders doesn´t need so much reduction than a smaller nation with less or no wonders.



Edit:
Maybe it would be smart to start the fixed scaling at 14K Infra nations as this is the mark for the wonder with the highest requirement.
14K Infra nation lost Xk Infra, starting factor is 1 x X% x base reduction
or
14K Infra nation lost Xk Infra, starting factor is 0.5 x X% x base reduction

Don't you guys already have the SDC for that? D:

What has this to do with suggesting the reference point of scaling at 14K infra? Question is what is balanced and what not thus i gave 2 options
14K Infra nation lost Xk Infra, starting factor is 1 x X% x base reduction
or
14K Infra nation lost Xk Infra, starting factor is 0.5 x X% x base reduction

For balanceing it it needs some test runings anyway to check in which steps the scaling should run and where the reference/starting point of the sacling should be. But i´m not going to calc some functions or run test before i know how serious Admin thinks about impleting this.

I sure hope this doesn't mean we can't be friends.

You have a medium-sized nation and perhaps are thinking only of yourself here. This would unbalance the game and should be avoided. My infra costs around $400K per level. If the cost to rebuild were reduced by something like 40% of cost (which would be far less than $400K by the time I'm buying again), then I can buy a lot more infra than you can for a comparable amount. I net over $20M per day. Do the math with your net and tell me who wins. Ask someone who doesn't make crap per day to do the same thing. When you have some math in hand that actually supports your argument, I'll listen.

Out of curiosity, did you take wonders and improvements into consideration? I mean if a nation with the exact same set of wonders and improvements as you were to collect his taxes, will his relative infra purchasing power be less than you?

that all depends upon what trades you have at the time. I'm just asking him to do a little math and see if he comes to the same answer I did.

i like original idea sounds good

I like the modified list proposed earlier:

40% of infrastructure damaged in war is irreparable.
40% of infrastructure damaged can be repaired at -40% infra costs.
20% of infrastructure damaged can be repaired at -20% infra costs.


I also think a time limit should be imposed. No discounts over 60 days, imo.