Current situation: There is no way to prioritize the goals of your nation. There is no way to be on a war footing, focus your nation to science, gear it to economic proficiency outside of adjusting your trades and improvements, etc. There is no difference between nations of the same infra, land, tech, trades, etc. except for the ruler.

Proposed solution: Allow nations a simple government position option to specialize their nation to focus on a desired area of expertise. This selection can change over time as national priorities shift.

How it would work: Each nation would have a list of options from which to choose in order to focus their nation towards a specific goal. These options can be changed once per month. The "general" option is chosen by default.

Suggested specialization options:

• war (offensive)
• war (defensive)
• war (spying)
• economic growth
• economic upkeep
• globalization
• research and development
• general

war (offensive) - player receives a 5% attack bonus (effectively 500 free tech for purposes of calculations) on all offensive military actions, not including spy attacks.
war (defensive) - player receives a 5% defense bonus (effectively 500 free tech for purposes of calculations) on all defensive military actions, not including spy attacks.
war (spying) - player receives a 10% bonus to all offensive and defensive spy attacks.
economic growth - player receives a 5% cost reduction to all infra purchases
economic upkeep - player receives a 5% cost reduction to all infra upkeep
globalization - player receives a $5 bonus to citizen income.
research and development - player receives a 10% reduction to all tech costs and a 5% cost reduction to wonder purchases.
general - small, generic bonus across all fields.

odds and ends - I had originally suggested the ability to specialize by allowing a "tech tree", for lack of a better phrase, which allowed a nation to research and unlock multiple specialization rungs in an area via time in game. However, admin and the mods stated that they weren't interested in any major/fundamental changes in the game. This new suggestion is a watered down version which will provide some basic benefits and allow for some more strategic choices by players. The fact that you can only change your option once per month will make it more interesting, and this could allow nations within an alliance to specialize, specifically during war time and peace time to fill specific roles.

Approved for Discussion

I really like this idea actually. Not much I can add to it to improve it. It's very thought out. Great job mate.

I support this idea.

I add my support as well.

Yeah I quite like this one

may instead of choosing offensive or defensive capabilities for wars, we simply make their forces more powerful overall. That was we can have the choice between economical nations and war-mongers.

I think each one should come with a downside, except general, or the time should be extended a lot.

For the economic ones, the soldier efficiency should be lower.

That might be a good idea. What specifically did you have in mind?

war offensive should get the reverse of it's bonus for defending and vise versa as a good example...maybe not quite as much of a penatly though. Perhaps like -3%.

Althoguh imo general should just be the way it is now as well, because well no one has any specialty now.

How about we edit this a little bit. Maybe even further specify.

Berserk Warlord - Increased combat effectiveness (10%?) But a decrease in income (5%?)

Guerrilla Warlord - Increased defending effectiveness (12%?) But a decrease in happiness (1?)

Intelligence Warlord - Increased spy attack and defense rates (10%?) but an increase to all military upkeep (3%?)

Engineering Specialist - Decreased infrastructure cost and upkeep (5%?) but a decreased military effectiveness (10%?)

Economist - Increased income by (8%?) but decrease military effectiveness by (5%?)

Technologist - Increase the cap for happiness from tech from 200 tech to 300 tech. (Not sure what happiness that would give) but increase technology costs by (10%?)

Environmentalist - Decrease global radiation by (25%?), increase environment by 1, and decrease military effectiveness by (5%?)

Expansionist (Not a word, but couldn't think of a different one) - Increase population by (3%?) but decrease military effectiveness by (5%?)

General - No bonus or penalty.

-Maybe only allow it to be changed once per month at a cost of (Nation Strength *5?)

Edited to change 'populationist' to 'expansionist' suggested by Comrade Tiki

To be honest i'd rather had a larger variety of improvements and wonders be added to the game - one that would take a long time for the nations to entirely purchase.

It's amazing how standardized the improvement order has become nowadays and i think adding more could really be beneficial as they'd have to opt between more military or more economical oriented ones.

Same thing goes for wonders. Just add a lot more military and economical ones. Eventually you could cap the number of wonders a nation can have to say 20 or something, so that replacing one with another would be an expensive thing and you couldn't be entirely focused on both economy and military at the same time.

Interesting idea with the cap. That could spice things up for sure.

I strongly support the enhanced concentration suggestions put forth by Bloody. (Technologist could use some modifications, and I suggest calling the unnamed Populationist role as "Expansionist".)

I passionately support a cap upon the total number of available improvements. Every nation with a good-sized quantity of infrastructure has every available improvement with no thinking behind it. At most a nation should have 80% of available improvements.

But this idea will also raise some problems, there will be a goal during wartime, a goal during peacetime and maybe a goal for selling tech and infra jumps. Even if you can only change it per month, and you have to pay five times your NS, this can still be abused. You probably won't change your goal every month, so if someone attacks you, then you automatically go for "Guerrilla Warlord".

We can probably tie event s into this, so we can have events that will change your stance for 30 days, or we can edit current events so that choosing Option 1 will make you a Berserk, choosing Option 2 will make you an Expansionist.

They already comes with a downside, an opportunity cost.

As far as the idea goes now, im for it. Its simple and would add to a broken government system.

A new spy operation could be added to randomly change it to another type. Also, it should be hidden from everyone but the ruler. Maybe change it to only be changed while not in peace mode and not in a war? That would stop people from changing over once something goes down. Or maybe unable to be changed while in anarchy.

Create a purely negative one to make it slightly more appealing to try to change their specialization?

And to make use of the literacy system, you should have to have at least a 90% literacy rating? Can't really specialize if you're uneducated, correct?

-It's a shame to see the same people stalking these forums over and over. There are plenty of bright minds out there that aren't even trying to improve the game. Also a shame that many of those nations are getting wiped out by this war. Would be nice to see some of these changes added to the game though. At least show that our time and effort has been well placed. This forum needs more moderation though... To sift through all the terrible ideas.

I support this as well, it could lead to some interesting game play and perhaps team based warfare more popular. One suggestion that should be considered is a time delay for switching between them (week?) That added some thought to your moves- and the negatives along with positives (provided nations can choose to avoid this) seems cool. The ones with negatives would also show a small extra bonus to more "safe bet" specializations.

when I initially proposed this idea, the main thrust of any negatives was the opportunity cost of not being able to do something else, but I would be willing to support an amendment to allow for a slight negative on any given specialization path.

I like this idea a lot, and while I hope I'm not hijacking the idea, I have a few ideas:
1) Use this to replace the government system (ie. you can only change government once a month).
2) Make the choices not 'war' and 'peace', leaving all others unused, but each having a mix. Here's some examples:

Hippie: -1 environment, +3% population, unaffected (or minimally affected) by global radiation
Religious: +5% soldier efficiency, +10% land, -6% infra upkeep
Expansionist: -4% all (purchase) costs
Authoritarian: -1 day anarchy, halves hapiness penalties of environment/defcon/threat
Liberal (economically, may replace with 'capitalist'): +2% income, -7% infra cost, -2% all bills
Technologist: -10% tech cost, +5% effect of technology (economy and military, not unlocking planes, etc)
Paranoid: +10% spy odds, -10% enemy spy odds, can 'reject' an event (has no effect)
Fascist: +5% income (state monopoly), +2% defending odds, +1 happy per military win
Speaker(can speak well to public): +3 happy, only go to anarchy when <10% soldiers
Moderate: +/-1(%) everything else (depending on what's 'good')

Numbers could be changed. The reason I did it with such 'strange' bonuses is to prevent standardization (communist for war, etc.).

Forgot intelligence

I'm not so fond of this idea. It's too far away from his original idea.

You, sir, have the most acceptable and temptingly-balanced numbers I have ever seen. I vehemently agree that policies should not be watered down into something so simple as "war vs economy". This mix is truly brilliant. With these choices I am severely tempted to try each choice and see what feels "right" for me! (It takes a great deal of creativity to come up with some of these, particularly reduced Defcon penalties and shortened anarchy.)


Some of the names are rather strange, though, and I think I can help make these policies sound more consistent:
*(indicates a suggested revision)


If the current government system is replaced by a Policy selection like this, Anarchist would be included.

If this is added without replacing governments, a nation could be shown as being "<policy> <govmt>", such as a "Populist Dictatorship", a "Nationalist Democracy", or a "Fanatical Federal Government".
(Some existing governments would easily be adjusted from adjectives to nouns, -ists to -isms.)

Doom Lord, I encourage you to create your own suggestion thread to discuss the relative merits of your alternate suggestion. I think that it could have legs, but as Bloody suggests, it's a bit too far from what I had originally envisioned for this thread. May the mods smile upon you.

To the field, before I ask a mod to add in a poll discussing this idea, as well as any possible modifications for penalties, I'd like to hear from some more people. In general I had originally intended to have the national priorities be something that were solely positive, and had the cost of just not getting something else as the main penalty, but I concede the point that inherent penalties might occur as a natural result of prioritizing one area over another. If you have something to add either in favor of the OP as it stands, or mods to make it better, please let you voice be heard so I can shape the dialog accordingly. In this case actually posting in favor with little else to add has value (as much as posting with suggestions to improve it).

I like Doom Lord's suggestion, it could probably reinforce the current gov't system. Maybe you could get a wonder that would allow you to have two of the choices, but each effect is halved or something of that sort.

Seems this thread has been hijacked o.O But might as well express my opinion of what he says.

Doom Lord's suggestion is a major change to everything in the game. With his numbers, everything would be too powerful. No effects from global radiation? That is a really drastic step. Able to reject events? Yet another major change to everything that events are for. What evilgm meant when he suggested this was a subtle increase to certain things. Not really a huge change.

But back to the idea. I think there should be a tech requirement to specialize. Maybe 500 tech? And there should probably be a wider variety of choice. I strongly support a population buff specialization.

I considered that one, but for whatever reason failed to include it. Perhaps it could be titled "expansionist." 3% pop boost.

Again i don't see why there should be added more options to the game when there is PLENTY of room to work on with the current system.

You want specialized nations? Add more wonders (both eco and military) and limit the number of wonders a nation can have.
Or make improvements ask for more citizens as you get more, so they become harder to purchase and maybe limit some purchases there too.

Everything regarding improvements and wonders is so standardized at this moment, it's like every alliance uses THE SAME GUIDE for build order (see ES's lycaeum). Why not tweak the system more so there are fewer "right" or "wrong" decisions and people think more for themselves about what to do with their nations, instead of trying to add yet another small (and pretty useless imo) option to the game. Seriously.

I'm not a fan of adding more wonders/improvements to an already overloaded system. That tends to favor those who are already at the top. My suggestion allows anyone to benefit. I'd like to see more with this proposal in the future, but am content with baby steps for now.

Did you even read all of my post?

At this point I'd agree mostly, although I'd make an exception for 1-2 naval wonders...but that's it.

Yes, I did. And you apparently read mine. We can agree to disagree. I am not in favor of adding wonders to fix issues with the game. I would rather try for something that makes a change that anyone could benefit from, not just some wonder band-aid that only helps the rich. The system I propose would allow anyone to immediately benefit from it.

No system proposition is going to be perfect. What I really wanted was shot down, so I'm going for something a little less ambitious but of the same tenor. If this gets approved, who knows where it might lead. If you have something constructive (and new) to add, by all means, please do so.

I agree with evilgm here. I like the fact that he is looking out for everyone, not just the large nations. Besides, a majority of the wonders everyone else wishes to implement are the same thing... +x happiness, +x% income... It gets old and adds nothing. evilgm's suggestion is pretty new. I admit, it adds very little, but that little is actually new, not just the same old stale suggestion.

I'm not against new wonders, I just think they should be worthwhile wonders, not the same old wonder over and over

I agree very significantly with you. This suggestion is one that everybody can access, something that forces you to make a decision instead of adding it when you have nothing better to buy as the rich do. You did observe that the original post wasn't dramatically different, as it's a compromise... but this is exactly why the derivatives by Doom Lord are so interesting.

Bloody criticized his first suggestion, as clearly 0 global radiation would be unfair. But it wouldn't be too radical to halve the effective radiation, as Doom Lord mentioned "(or minimally affected)". Now, the ability to reject events does indeed affect the purpose of events. But it's a perfectly acceptable option for those nations which have been made especially paranoid by multiple consecutive negative events. Furthermore, the remaining benefits to that Paranoid policy are not the most powerful - - spy increases. Spy operations are mostly used during warfare, so there's a rather limited application beyond trying to escape new bad events. (And you won't be able to reject events that have already been decided for...)
Anyway, the rest of the numbers are just fine. Evilgm's original suggestion is quite mild, perhaps too mild, and are very much like extensions of pre-existing things like improvements and wonders.

Make it so that literacy has to be over 80%. Then literacy would have something of a purpose, and there would be a good change to the game!

The main idea of my post was to limit the number of wonders a nation can have while extending the areas which these affect (military and economics with some focus in each field), as currently most wonders are economical (and with a few exceptions address only happiness boosts, very few focus on anything else) and a few military ones - with a lot of space to extend over as well.

Basically i like the concept of having a specialized nation rather than a "do this and this and you have a perfect nation and everything else is weaker" (what i reffered to as standardization), but i don't want to add yet another new option to what i think is for new players a bloated system, when there's plenty of room to fix and tweak the current one in order to achieve the same goal as to what you're proposing.

I REALLY, really like this idea. It would add a new dynamic to the game.
And of course the individual effects would have to be balanced.

You shouldn't be able to switch very often, once a month at the max. You need to implement something so nations are not able to switch to the military things before or after a big conflict. But disallowing switching when at war would only give the attacking side a so much bigger advantage...

Maybe having to confirm the policy once a month and then not being able to switch.

First I will say I like any and all suggestions that make things diverse. CN has now endured three years as a game where everyone is exactly the same, and this really needs to be changed.

I like Doom Lord's suggestion more than the OP, mostly because his does have a bit more of an effect overall. Especially the special effects like ignore nuclear radiation, or reduce anarchy by 1 day. These sorts of things would have an actual impact, rather than just bonuses that most people won't even notice.

I would however recommend tying a bonus in with improvements. Say each specialization is tied to one or two improvements. (Example: Instead of +1% income, you increase the effect of all banks by 1%). With the current system, it amounts to the same effect, especially for higher end nations, but it leaves the game more open to expansion and change in the future. For example a suggestion I have pushed for many times in the past is to allow for the 5 max on improvements to be lifted, but improvement costs go up on a exponential scale for each one you buy. This is a different suggestion so I won't go into detail, but the point is the leave this suggestion open to integration with other things that could further specialize nations.




An alternative (or additional) thing you could do is have the specializations give a base effect that is generic, and have Wonders that give an additional 'cool' bonus while using that specialization. Say you can only ignore nuclear radiation with conservationist after buying the wonder that supports it.

I really like the idea of limiting wonders...somewhere around 10 would lead to specialisation either military or economy or somewhere in between...the problem is, people are already over that but quit a bit.


specialisation in terms of just selecting a government sounds ok, just needs to be where it isn't just everybody has the same thing in peace time and another thing in war...which it most likely will be.

Ryan, let's keep the thread on topic.

Are there any other suggestions besides the OP or the one that Doom Lord suggested that have any adherents?

I'll be blunt. The fact is that there is already a system of opportunity cost for nations; they are called improvements and wonders. You can only build one improvement for every thousand citizens and you can build only one wonder every month, so you are constantly forced to choose one item over another until you grow exceptionally large. (Capping the number of wonders and/or improvements would indeed solve this problem, but it would create another problem where tons of old players would leave since there would be almost nothing else to do).

As for the specific proposal you've raised, it would really change nothing except add in another gimmick into the game (I admit, I do like this gimmick but it quite frankly fails to truly change anything). Growing nations would choose the "economic growth" option, nations who have hit optimal infra would choose the "globalization" option, and the moment the political tides turn towards war, everyone will choose the war option (Offensive for nations with high tech and warchests defensive for the weaker nations or nations with inadequate warchests).

So the only thing your proposal does is add like four sentences to any nation building guide.

Shinn, I hear what you're saying. If you take a closer look at the OP I stated that this is a watered down version of what I really wanted to accomplish, but am looking at this in a baby steps situation. If we can work towards smaller optimizations for minor tweaks, then admin may move us in the direction of a major tweak. Milk before meat.

I am not convinced that your predictions on use will come to pass for a clear majority, but it very well may. I am merely seeking a route to allow for two nations to be different with more than just the player. I admit that this isn't perfect, but I think it's a step in the right direction. If you're looking for a sweeping change, you likely won't ever see it.

Lets add this

It would add an extra element of strategy to the game, which I think would be great! I agree, however, that with every option there should be both a bonus and a downside, or perhaps multiple of both.

Bonus multipliers should be cumulative and permanent. For instance, if you select an offensive military bonus on month 1 (+5% Offense)
month 2: +5% Offense (+10% Offense)
month 3: +5% Offense (+15% Offense)
month 4: +5% Income (+5% Income & +15% Offense)
month 5: +5% Environment (+5% Environment & +5% Income & +15% Offense)

The downside of selecting a specific bonus would be no upside in the others.

---------------------------------
Edit: this is different from improvements and wonders in that there are no initial or maintenance costs and there are no limits. This would allow nations to be totally custom and unique to each player.

cumulative bonuses for extra months would be interesting. I think that with increased bonuses for one there should be some give and take, probably in the form of negatives elsewhere. Increases in military should have economic downturn, while econ options should lower military (for example). The first month won't have any negatives, but after that they come. Something to think about.

If anything make it the other way around. Heavy penalties at the beginning, but over time the penalties go down and the benefits get bigger, to more heavily discourage swapping.

That said I prefer the idea that was brought up of penalties not always being as simple as +military -econ and vice verca.


Why can't you have +population, +soldier efficiency, -happiness, -plane power, as an example.

This specialization would be awesome for ground battles (more population means more soliders and tanks, and they're more efficient to boot!), but the happiness penalty balances out the econ for the most part, and the plane power penalty means in exchange for having a solid advantage in ground battles, you will most likely not be able to dominate the air, meaning you're more likely to take damage on that front.


Other specializations could be developed in a similar vein.



I also still like the idea of tying bonuses and penalties to improvements, just because it does lead to the potential of further game improvements down the road. But that idea doesnt seem to have caught much traction.

Which is basically what I was proposing all along, where there is no clear 'economic' or 'military' choice, but variation. The idea od making the options become better over time is good, and I hope it will come into play, but, like this topic, it probably won't. For those pople who want to know what happened to my thing, to avoid hijacking I tried to make a new topic (which the admins shot down because it was too similiar to the improvements).

To the OP, I love the idea. Have it something like the threat level, defcon level, a drop down tab which should be very easy to code for the admin. Also if it is like the threat level drop down arror I think it should be hidden so someone looking at your nation isn't aware of what your intentions are.