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Radical Idea: Change the starting NS


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So, I'm trying to think out of the box here... what can we do to TE to get more people involved, more people excited, and to perhaps entice SE players to give TE a try?

 

How about making the next round of TE a virtual upper-tier brawl? Instead of starting all nations out with virtually nothing, what about starting every nation out at a very solid strength. Hell... load us up with navies, air forces, nukes, and 4k infra - right from the jump! 

 

Here's my thinking. For literally years, the formula in TE and SE has been the same - starting from scratch. And while many of us who have very large SE nations enjoy the chance to freshen up our basic-level battle tactics, some folks who try TE never get a chance to build up in TE to a size where they can truly experience upper-tier war. 

 

So, let's turn the tables. Instead of everyone starting out with virtually nothing, let's start everyone out with virtually everything. 

 

This would give the SE players who've no interest in revisiting the basics of nation building an incentive to try TE, and it will give smaller nations a chance to experience what the big boys face in SE - basically flipping the dynamic of TE warfare from the past 25 rounds on its head. 

Edited by Rooman33
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The problem with simulating late-game play in SE is that late-game play in SE tends to be very very long-term; the only reason you buy infra in SE past 15k or 20k is because you want your nation to look good, not because of any actual economic advantages, so direct growth options for players are more lacking.

 

TE to some extent already simulates late-tier play; a colleague last round mentioned how they had more navy floating in TE than they did in SE with a top 100 nation, and tech is already scaled in TE to compensate for the lower effective tech levels.

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It's true that growth is expedited in TE so that nations can acquire the strength of mid-level strength SE nations in a matter of weeks, but it's not true that all nations in TE get to experience high-tier war - what with Navies, nukes, full air forces, 800 spies, etc. In fact, most don't. And no one's talking about starting us all out at some super elite level of infra just for giggles, I believe 4k infra was the number I floated.

 

The idea is that we simply move the starting line so that wars start out with a lot more intensity, roguery has higher stakes, and losing a war has a much more dramatic effect. Think of NASCAR racing for a moment. They don't all start out at 0 mpg on the first lap, do they? No! They get up to speed and start the first lap at a very solid pace. That's what we're talking about here.

 

Frankly, the idea of nation building from nothing.... again... is what keeps a lot of vets away. That's why I only play TE once every few rounds or so. I've been playing CN for 6.5 years. Personally, building up a nation from scratch and then having little food fight wars doesn't appeal to me. I know everything about the mechanics of that element of the game I'm ever going to need. And I've spoken to other long-timers who feel the same. Vets have done the zero to hero routine over and over and over and over again. It gets old. And, by now, most of us know the optimal formulas for growth in those first few weeks so we're all pretty much in auto-pilot from the jump until the first war. And then, because no one really has any nukes, solid air force or navy -- the first war consists of GAs, CMs, spy attacks, and MAYBE air raids. Weeeeeeeeee!!!

 

And then there's the newbs, who would do well to "test drive" a larger nation so that when their SE nation comes of age, they don't run it off a cliff - as so many seem to do. 

 

But your point about SE wars taking longer is an interesting one. Yes, they take longer - because there's no time cap on SE, so they can take as long as they need to to make the point the particpating parties want to make. We only have a couple months in TE to finish the round. I wouldn't expect to see many wars that lasted much longer in TE than they do now. But so what if they did? I for one wouldn't mind freshening up on my re-declaring, staggering and multi-round battling. This "one and and done" type of warring in TE is good to give us all a tactical refresher and then a breather in between, but it doesn't really simulate what most vets in SE want to practice (once they've already freshened up on basic battle tactics... over and over). It simply misses some of the more strategic elements of warfare in CN, IMO. 

Edited by Rooman33
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I disagree. The hunting down and destruction of flagrunners is pretty boring, yes. But the latter alliance wars are by far more exciting and challenging than the first one - because all military functionality is on the table. In the War Doves first war, by the second or third day, I was the only player in either alliance with nukes. There were no navies, everyone's air force was fledgling, and the participating alliances had agreed (much to my chagrin) on limited spy opps. In our third war, it was no holds barred.  Why not just start everyone out at a level where wars are immediately high stakes? 

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wars in the early game are actually higher stakes then later game wars to anyone with foresight. 

Agreed. And I don't actually mind the fact that most of your potential military assets aren't on the table. Early wars just leave fewer tools available to us, and force us to choose between them more often. (Do I want more air, or more spies? Rebuy 200 infra to boost GAs, or finish with a stronger warchest? These decisions are a lot more important and more difficult in the early round.)

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Relative to flagrunning, yes, early wars can have strategic implications. For those of us who play TE to refine war capabilities, however, those early wars are about useless. We all end up fighting with the same limited military capabilities we had at the beginning of every. single. other. round. There are only so many ways to coordinate a GA blitz to optimal effect. And you can do it only so many times before it becomes monotonous and mundane. The more military assets you have on the board (for you to launch and to have launched at you) the more combinations there are for either maximizing damage to your enemy or minimizing damage to yourself, respectively. And it's these combinations that most SE vets want to freshen up on. The starter nation <20k ns wars are not appealing. We've all done them hundreds of times. We get it. We've got it. We've had it. It gets old. 

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If you want to do top tier nation fighting then that is what SE is for. Also wars in which everyone has the same exact stuff because everyone is maxed out is boring. Wars in which people have to choose which units they want (i.e. early game play) is far more exciting strategically. 

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