Okay I believe the pot needs sweetened. Donations just don't occur like they used to. Mainly because they can't be bought for the tune of 18 mill or less like they could. I would like to see more donations, as I assume Kevin would, and propose we figure out some way to make them a more integral part of the game once again.

Two ideas I came up with were these:

1. Allow some sort of larger transfer of money to the nation donating to another nation by the nation paying with $CN. FOr example, maybe allow them to set up a contract and then allow the game to simply transfer the funds without having to worry about aid slots and time. This would allow donations to go for 20-30 mill or higher but it would still be manageable by the Large nation buying the $20 donation.

2. Allow greater rewards for the Donations, which in turn would provide a better incentive, more cash, to be paid to the small nation... A large nation might be willing to have to devote 10-20 days of aid slots if they were getting 300 infra, or some other larger bonus.

I pay with tech for my donations generally (i.e. i send cash to sellers who send tech to whom i tell them to). And many do it the same way, so idk how well this would work tbh.
Either way although it seems to be less of a headache i don't think it would be a good thing to encourage donations to become more expensive (in-game wise) because 18mil is well too much as it is.

Also i'd be all for donations giving more cash than 400k (they should give like 5*daily collection + 500k)

I am no expert on how to fix this, I just think we need to find a way to make these more common as they have kind of died off.

How is $18 mill too much? I'm an average sized nation with 8K infra and a donation is worth over $60 mill to me...

Definitely agree with this, the figure of 400k is outdated and doesn't mean much to anyone buying a donation.

I like the idea of making it easier to pay in-game for donations too. Maybe a donation could provide the donating nation and the nation donated to with a couple of temporary bonus aid slots for the duration of the month to help facilitate faster $CN payment. Okay, okay, I'm rubbish with ideas... but something to make paying them off in-game easier might encourage more donations. Right now when buying one you face a drain on aid slots, and when selling one it takes a while for you to receive your bounty.

Actually, I like the idea of the aid slot, but I think it should be something different. A Temp Aid slot for 15 days, with the aid expiring every 3 days between the donater and the donated. You could pay 15 mil in that time frame or 15mil/250tech, more than enough for a current donation.

However, there is a delicate balance here. Donations are meant to be difficult to obtain because you have to juggle slots. If we don't work on how they are paid, I suggest a scaled donation. 200 infra baseline, 100 tech baseline, and a scale for cash/land to make them worth the amount paid. Or just set a next level (25$ donations)

I've stopped doing donations because the benefit isn't worth it for me, I'd rather increase my amount of tech than get some infra :\

The opportunity cost for paying out 18M is 200 tech :\

the main issue seems to be that we need a way to allow a single large transfer of funds, but would have to find a way to not let it be manipulated...

I've never done a donation deal but, if I'm allowed to put my "10 cents in," I think this would generate more revenue than it currently is.

Donation Wonder...

Cost $250million

Allows a transfer of up to $25million through one extra aid slot which can only be used for this purpose, and can only be sent within 3 days of receiving a donation bonus to your nation.

--

I have a feeling however this isn't what admin invisioned when he added donation to the game, people 'selling' them to others... so he may not embrace the idea... who knows...

Could mean a big time increase in donations during war time though, if you need war aid, drop $20 on someone and get $25mill...

something needs to be done, but i have a feeling that if people can get more money through some "super aid slot" that it might drive the price up higher than it already is

The price *should* go up. I agree and support the suggestion to allow a link to come up after someone donates to your nation which says:

"So-and-so has donated to your nation. You have the opportunity to pay this person up to X amount of money directly without using any aid slots, but only up to 48 hours after you read this message" or something.

If Admin wants to increase donations, then he should look into this, for it would increase his revenue.

But as expressed earlier, juggling aid slots is something one must have skill to do, so it's one less thing to have to juggle, making the game easier, less challenging.

I'm still for it though.

You can´t use infinite amount of cash send by an "extra" aid slot or any other way as you can circumvent the 15m/18m aid restrcitions ingame to easy.
Think about a new Nation donate to an old Nation and there is no limit, bummmmm 1billion cash send to a 1 day new nation in 1day..... no way. To much abuse potential.

Invent Donation slots
You have the same number of Donation slots for multiple sending to the donating Nation as you have standard slots.
Donation slots have the same limits as Standard slots.
Donation and standard aid slots are not interchange able.
Donation slots can be used only to a Nation who donated to you within 30days after the donation so you can use all your Donation aid slots 3x times at best.
Donation slot expires every 9days (to avoid the February problem and give some space for delays)


Not necassarly needed but if you want restrictions.

I fail to see any present problem here... If you are saying that donation deals arnt that common, then I must say you havent been looking in the right places. Almost everywhere I look there is a donation for sell, whether it'll be for tech (larger nations) or cash (smaller). So really, no point in changing donation deals right now seeing as how there are more important things to work on (no more aid slots? hm?)


and exactly how "sweet" do you want the pot to be? Right now If I were to buy a donation deal (at say 15 million), id be saving myself more then 40 million then if I were to purchase the things on my own. Purdy awesome if you ask me.

Having an instant donation slot with some capped limit would encourage more donation sellers, as large nations wouldn't care about sending $25M. They just care about losing those valuable tech collector slots while they pay for donations. So the price would go up and hopefully then increase production.

Support anything that makes it easier to pay for donations.

As a donation seller, I love the idea of a "donation" aid slot. It takes forever to get paid under the current system, and sometime can take longer than a month to get fully paid, which delays subsequent donation deals.

I would use a separate slot for donations if one were available. I don't do them anymore b/c of the lost tech deal opportunities...

If I were Admin and the coding was possible I'd poll the community for the Fairest price $15-$24 million. I'd make a Donation aid slot that Could only be used for that amount of cash. Once the aid is sent to a nation in order to accept the aid a nation must Donate $20. Once the donation is complete the donating nation is credited with the cash. The slot clears on the 1st of every month.

That's cash only....paying by tech in a lump sum would be a bit more difficult of course. I wouldn't wanna send out 500 of my own tech. You may just have to stick to the tried and true method of sending to sellers to send to the donating nation.

One option to help in this situation could be to add a new benefit of receiving a donation: A nation may send 2x the standard amount of foreign aid money for the remainder of the calendar month.

That would make it much easier for both nations, I am about to do a donation deal and I too don't think admin really thought about just selling donations off, probably didn't think of tech dealing either...

I would prefer as was mentioned a donation contract, i.e. Nation A sends offer for an $xx.xx donation at at a price of xx million, then Nation B can either agree, deny, or haggle. But again, admin probably didn't picture selling donations off to the highest bidder.

Wait... so excuse my noobiness, but how exactly does donation dealing work? Here is as far as I can see it: Nation A is large and pays 20m to Nation B, which is small, for a $21m donation deal to be paid over 7 10-day periods? Nation A benefits from 200 infrastructure and 20 tech, Nation B benefits from the $21m?

Nation A being large can easily afford to pay $21 million to have a $20 donation made to his nation. The value of the donation to his nation in the form of the 200 infrastructure, 200 land and 20 tech is usually worth at least several times what he is paying if he bought just the infrastructure alone. The land and tech are bonuses. Nation B being small, but has $20 they can spend, would benefit more from the $21 million than he would placing the donation on his own nation since the $21 million would buy many times over the benefit a donation provides. It's a win-win situation.

Hmm, I suppose this would give you perhaps a frenzy in war time donation buying, but it would still give you hell in trying to pay the guy for the donation, unless you pay tech sellers.

So this would mean 6mill/100tech/4000soldiers in each slot?..

Could this give nations/alliances/people with more RL cash an edge in a CN war though?

If their pockets were deep enough they could do mass donations and potentially have twice as much aid flowing down to their alliance during a war... sort of 'buying their way to the top' which I think has always been against the spirit of the donation idea...

I guess you could make it so that any nation at war couldn't send or receive a 'double' aid package and just get the existing donation bonus & aid amounts... However you'd still have alliances with deeper pockets being able to rebuild/build quicker than others...

JS, if you look closely at what admin said he used the term "aid money" so tech and soldiers would be done. I think that you bring up a good point about how this would be abused in wartime. If you really want to encourage donation deals, then perhaps the best way to do this would be to have an auction system in place. This could be used for donations, tech deals, etc. Through the auction system you can buy things in bulk or transfer money to the seller. This would allow for larger transfers of cash and it wold also allow someone to skip the abuse since it would be to the highest bidder.

It would make people willing to spend alot of RL cash better in wars, but increasing the time between required to 3 months. My recommendation is now, that we do that, as i said, submitting a contract for $xx and xxmillion (between 18mill and 30mill) then if they accept, they in the same manner agree on a date, then the xxmillion can be sent 6 at a time with all aid slots. Feedback?

I would be willing to pay $50 to receive an extra wonder slot for the month the donation was paid.

Does anyone else like this idea?

No. I would never use that because $50 is way too high a price. It would be nicer if donations were updated to make it easier and quicker for everyone, without having to pay extra.

Well, there is no harm in adding the $50 donation i suppose.

I think that if you want to encourage donation deals that you could set up an aid pipe to the person you are donating with. For example you are able to donate to any nation you want. Admin did this to encourage aid deals. I don't know if he saw this from the beginning as how donation deals would be used or not. However, once you do the little click and submit, you could then have an open aid channel with the person for whom you are donating. This could be an extra aid slot which is used to transfer one lump sum, usable only once per month (as you can only get one donation per month). Initially I think that a $50M cap would be good, as it would allow for growth for some time, and allow nations to be generous to friends or alliance mates as the situation calls for it. Donation deals would likely spike.

@Admin: That's a good idea, but they'd have to be set a set period (31 days?) and they'd have to stack.

Because if I do a donation, I do two and I do last day of month/first day of next month.

Also, 50 dollars is far, far, far too much.

Well a lot of games do stuff like that already that can be used to give one guild or group an advantage during an assault on a rival. It does have precedence. However, your point about it being a wartime use only may be more appropriate. If admin is looking for long-term sustainable source then this isn't the way to go.

I think this is an excellent Idea, I have been buying donations for $18 Million a month and every couple months I buy my own because it is too hard to keep up with sending out 6 Payments of $3 Million for a donation. I have recently considered just not getting donations at all anymore. I would be willing to pay 25 Million or more if I could do it in one shot.

The downside to this would be that donations would go up in price and it would be harder for smaller nations to afford to pay for them. Not to mention that smaller nations would have a hard time saving up 250 Million for the wonder.

Maybe something could be added to the message you receive stating you received a donation allowing you to send a one time payment then.

Which defeats the purpose in many ways of what most people want.

When I threw the idea up for the wonder, I was meaning that only the nation being donated on (IE the large nation) would have to have the wonder... not both nations.

So a small nation could drop $20 on a large one and receive up to $25mill in one hit, provided they donated on someone with the wonder.

However, as we have progressed through discussion, I'd suggest the wonder would be 'disabled' if either party is at war, to help prevent alliances with lots of RL cash trying to 'buy victory' with massive aid chains.

Before actually sending the 20$, the seller (the one who is paying 20 bucks) signs up for a donation deal the same way, names his price in CN money in another text box somewhere. The buyer agrees to the money in the text box and after he agrees, the transaction of 20 dollars goes through and the admin exchanges the CN money.

That idea's nice...


how about this tho;
In order to accept the donation, when the donation is sent to the person that's receiving it, he puts in the amount of CN$$ he would like back for the donation being sent, the receiver of donation gets asked to accept and send the $$$, and the money gets instantly sent, and donation received at same time.

^^ if this is not understood, lemme know what you don't understand and I will try to clarify

@admin: idea seems alright at first, but imagine an alliance with players that have the financial capabilities of doing donation deals doing so in order to make maximum use of aid system during a war by sending 6 (9 with FAC? that may actually give it some worth :v) million on masse to sustain the war.
Idk, i mean i think they deserve to be able to gratified for helping you, since i'm sure you pay a lot for the servers and invest a lot of time in the game (which i thank you for), but i wouldn't like this to be abused.

An odd random silly idea i had though - what if donations brought you twice the normal benefits on the months when your nation is celebrating their 1 year birthdays?

If we add this, add donation-slots or allow for a "donation-aid"-slot to be worth 15mio, that would just allow for people to buy themselves to the top. Making it be the richest (in RL) players at the top and not the most skilled ones.

This could lead to people being frustrated with the game, as they have no chance of competing with donation-sellers strength and military-wise. Leading to people leaving the game, leading to the game being less attractive, hence leading to LESS donations being made, as no one wants to have ingame-donation benefits in a boring and empty game.

--> Keep the system as it is.


If donations really are not flowing as they used to, make donations more visible ingame and maybe set an ingame link to the black market, many new nations don't know those possibilites exist and for them 200 infra isn't that much, while 5slots of 3mio is.

I don't think there is anyone that can argue the system shouldn't be updated. I doubt the original idea of donations was to be sold like tech is in mass quantities.

Donation slots can be abused... we all realize that but until donations are worth more than just their infra amount, I don't see why we need to keep it the way it is.

If we can't find a solution, the values outside of infra could at least be updated some.

Is there a way to do it so that if Nation A buys a donation for $X million from Nation B, that the money just is deducted from Nation A and added to Nation B without any slots at all?

No Changes

Absolutely no changes should be made to the donation system.

There are too many games on the web which can be dominated by people willing to pay real money.
Granting more benefits for donors will only make the game more discouraging for the poorer among us.

You can still only buy 1 per month....

And a person able to part with $20 can rake in 30 million dongs.

Simple fix, assuming you think we need it.


When you receive a donation one of the benefits is it resets* all your current aid slots, so just make sure you send your payment to the person donating for you first and your aid is open again.



*By reset I mean it clears completed transactions that are simply waiting on the timer before the aid slot is free again.

The timers on aid slots are difficult to change in the coding the mods have told me. I sent a suggestion in that would probably fix donations but it involved aid slot timers being worked on, and it seems the coding is rather hardwired to our 10 day system.

I honestly think the only one that will know how to fix donations is Admin, mainly because he rakes in money from these and is the only one with full access to the CN coding (that I know of) so he can see where and if we can modify the system in place to accommodate the selling of donations rather than just buying.

Well even if it is a difficult change, I can't think of a better cause (from admin's point of view) to justify more work, than the chance to get paid more. If the changes mean even only a handful of new people start using the donation system he's still looking at the potential for hundreds more a month.

Something needs to be done. I donated $20 every month for my first year and a half. I have not donated anything in the last 6 months. I want to.... but there is no incentive for me anymore.

Doesn't benefit me. My aid slots are almost never filled unless I've been aiding younger nations in my alliance.