Round 31 Changes

[Daenerys Targaryen]

We could remove the alliance cap but if an alliance has 11 or more nations at reset then they forfeit their chance at the "Most Alliance Casualties", Top 3 NS awards and alliance crown.

[Imperator Honorius]

Heh, top 5% having nukes/EMP nukes is like SE before the MP wonder was available. Been a long time. :v

[Black Widow]

If we go with no MP, I'd say let the top 7.5% (6%, whatever) buy nukes.

 

Also, keep crime out of TE at least for now. It's a bit much if we add all of this stuff at the same time :P

[King James XVIII]

We could remove the alliance cap but if an alliance has 11 or more nations at reset then they forfeit their chance at the "Most Alliance Casualties", Top 3 NS awards and alliance crown.

 

Nah. Would an alliance with 12 members and a bunch of legit killers get passed over with this idea? Sounds like it. 

 

This idea is really what i'd like to see implemented.

 

 

I'd just add a lock out time frame. For example, 2 weeks before the round resets, no nation can join any alliance.

 

I like this. It would cut off one of the easiest routes to alliance gaming and of course, with two weeks in the round a merge at that point would just make those people targets. 

 

One more thing, casualties doesn't always tell the tale of who was the best at war. If there were a way to keep track of the damage an alliance causes during the round that would be more accurate. I doubt we're advanced enough for that though and I would be happy to have anything that crowns an alliance (which I think this does). 

[Daenerys Targaryen]

 

Nah. Would an alliance with 12 members and a bunch of legit killers get passed over with this idea? Sounds like it. 

 

 

I like this. It would cut off one of the easiest routes to alliance gaming and of course, with two weeks in the round a merge at that point would just make those people targets. 

 

One more thing, casualties doesn't always tell the tale of who was the best at war. If there were a way to keep track of the damage an alliance causes during the round that would be more accurate. I doubt we're advanced enough for that though and I would be happy to have anything that crowns an alliance (which I think this does). 

Regardless what the cap is but i think it can't work without the cap. I'd rather see a lower count since not all smaller alliances can make those numbers and larger alliances only have to drop their numbers. Too high of a cap would give smaller alliances the disadvantage but 12 is reasonable. I wouldn't go any higher than 15 but 10 is ideal.

[Nick GhostWolf]

Regardless what the cap is but i think it can't work without the cap. I'd rather see a lower count since not all smaller alliances can make those numbers and larger alliances only have to drop their numbers. Too high of a cap would give smaller alliances the disadvantage but 12 is reasonable. I wouldn't go any higher than 15 but 10 is ideal.

 

An alliance cap really doesn't make sense, whether at 15, 20, or really... anywhere.  One solution would be to crown alliance awards based on an average of the stat in question - average casualties, average NS, whatever it might be.  It would be fairly simple to exploit-proof this by requiring a nation to have at least 1/2 of the round in seniority in a particular alliance to count towards the statistic and to set a lower limit at say, 5 nations to be in the running.  Even completely inexperienced newberts rarely have difficulty putting together a 5-person micro.

 

That way this award wouldn't be the sole territory of giants such as Skaro or (last round) TE Police.  An 11-person alliance could achieve a higher average NS, average casualty count, etc than a 25-person alliance and we see this occur routinely.  There are some alliances that form just to flag run but there are more alliances with core userbases in the 15-25 nation range.  Having "too many nations in your AA" be a disqualifying factor for awards ends up being as problematic as "having too much infra".

[Daenerys Targaryen]

 

An alliance cap really doesn't make sense, whether at 15, 20, or really... anywhere.  One solution would be to crown alliance awards based on an average of the stat in question - average casualties, average NS, whatever it might be.  It would be fairly simple to exploit-proof this by requiring a nation to have at least 1/2 of the round in seniority in a particular alliance to count towards the statistic and to set a lower limit at say, 5 nations to be in the running.  Even completely inexperienced newberts rarely have difficulty putting together a 5-person micro.

 

That way this award wouldn't be the sole territory of giants such as Skaro or (last round) TE Police.  An 11-person alliance could achieve a higher average NS, average casualty count, etc than a 25-person alliance and we see this occur routinely.  There are some alliances that form just to flag run but there are more alliances with core userbases in the 15-25 nation range.  Having "too many nations in your AA" be a disqualifying factor for awards ends up being as problematic as "having too much infra".

Nothing has to make sense, it just has too work. You'd need a cap if it was based off admins ideas, for obvious reasons. Just moving in this direction is what i can get behind, i don't care about the variations as long as it works.

[Nick GhostWolf]

Nothing has to make sense, it just has too work. You'd need a cap if it was based off admins ideas, for obvious reasons. Just moving in this direction is what i can get behind, i don't care about the variations as long as it works.

 

In a philosophy debate you'd have me cornered but this is about hard statistics and introducing a cap may solve one problem, but will then create several other much larger problems - primarily, the retention of members in the game.   With an average-based system you wouldn't need a cap and everyone in the alliance would count equally; the safeguards I mentioned above would work to prevent people from trying to exploit it through end-round changes.  With a safeguarded average system an alliance with 11 people would stand on an even footing against an alliance of 30 people and it would come down to indiviudal performance and the quality of alliance management.  As a perfect example compare say, Catharsis' ANS to Skaro's.  The total sum of infra and casualties would make Skaro victor almost by default but if you average the figures rather than sum them, you get a more accurate representation that is difficult to game with safeguards and doesn't impose restrictive clauses on alliances that are likely to make people leave the game.

[Daenerys Targaryen]

 

In a philosophy debate you'd have me cornered but this is about hard statistics and introducing a cap may solve one problem, but will then create several other much larger problems - primarily, the retention of members in the game.   With an average-based system you wouldn't need a cap and everyone in the alliance would count equally; the safeguards I mentioned above would work to prevent people from trying to exploit it through end-round changes.  With a safeguarded average system an alliance with 11 people would stand on an even footing against an alliance of 30 people and it would come down to indiviudal performance and the quality of alliance management.  As a perfect example compare say, Catharsis' ANS to Skaro's.  The total sum of infra and casualties would make Skaro victor almost by default but if you average the figures rather than sum them, you get a more accurate representation that is difficult to game with safeguards and doesn't impose restrictive clauses on alliances that are likely to make people leave the game.

First, If you have these "hard statistics", that show having a cap on alliances decrease the games member count, then I'd like to see them.

 

I use to play a game very similar to CN:TE and it had a 8 nation alliance cap, 3 month rounds, no aid restrictions and the game lasted nearly a decade and it had about the same member count decline that TE has.

 

I favor the alliance cap to keep alliance member counts more equal. I can see problems with going by an average based system with alliances dropping those who don't meet alliance standards. This means more newbies getting dropped and left to fend for themsleves which means they leave the game. With caps we get more alliances and that means more options for members to choose from.

[Nick GhostWolf]

First, If you have these "hard statistics", that show having a cap on alliances decrease the games member count, then I'd like to see them.

 

I use to play a game very similar to CN:TE and it had a 8 nation alliance cap, 3 month rounds, no aid restrictions and the game lasted nearly a decade and it had about the same member count decline that TE has.

 

I favor the alliance cap to keep alliance member counts more equal. I can see problems with going by an average based system with alliances dropping those who don't meet alliance standards. This means more newbies getting dropped and left to fend for themsleves which means they leave the game. With caps we get more alliances and that means more options for members to choose from.

 

The hard statistics I'm talking about are existing figures for ANS, casualties, etc.  These are already measured by the game and introducing a figure that computes the sum of qualifying alliance members casualties, infra, etc, and then divides them by the total number of qualifying members is ridiculously simple.  If these figures are measured you can see how an alliance with 10 members may find itself at an advantage in some regards to a 30 member alliance.  This is a community-driven game and a part of that is the microcosmic community within an alliance.  Many alliances already will drop members who fail to remain active or egregiously ignore building and warchest standards.

 

Have you considered the paradoxical effect that with a cap on alliance size you will end up with maybe 4 or 5 disproportionately skilled alliances filling to the cap with only the most experienced of players?  You would end up with more options, true, but instead of 10-15 major alliances that vary round to round it's more likely you would see alliances close off their doors to new members for fear that a slot in their alliance would be taken by someone inactive or too inexperienced to provide the numbers for the statistics.  It would worsen the problem with people being removed.  Averages count all - in a system where you only have so many people allowed on an individual AA (10 is the number Admin put forward, so we'll go with that) you have so many slots.  Anyone who is not measuring up could be booted; to prevent this from being gameable you'd need a similar safeguard system to the one that I proposed and it still would increase the incentive to drop someone rather than decrease it.

 

In the end you would have a very complex system that relegates new players to scrounge for position in "leftovers" alliances or form their own alliances.  You would also see fracturing of existing alliances and as this is a community-driven game and people prefer to play with their friends, it's likely that many people would leave the game (and this still would not prevent the remaining experienced players from denying entry to new players to their alliances).  Furthermore there is the somewhat more disturbing issue that this attempts to force "equality" directly at the expense of the community.  As this is a community driven game, the community organizes itself within the game and attempting to mandate that no one alliance can have more members than the others is an unacceptable breach of what it means to be a community organized game.  And, it still doesn't change the fact that an alliance of 10 experienced and organized players could still easily dominate three 10 player alliances with little experience and organization.  Much like reality, you simply can't legislate equality through code.  It is impossible.

 

At the end of the day you can apply Occam's razor to this.  The more complex solution has too many risks in terms of alienating people who prefer to play with their existing alliance and also requires Admin to do substantially more work.  While it satisfies the goal of providing a means for an alliance incentive versus an individual incentive, the existing community will be altered so significantly that I can realistically see a loss of half of the total population of TE.  It places a choice in front of players that is very difficult - do I play with my friends/comrades that I've developed friendships with and know I can count on, or do I play with people I do not know?  It's way too altruistic to assume that people will go with option B there and forcing a choice like that is going to mean the new people get kicked aside.  This is a sentiment bound to be echoed by others.  The less complex solution will satisfy the spirit of the goal - which is to provide an alliance incentive within the prize distribution - while remaining in keeping with the spirit of a community driven game and allowing new members the freedom to pick which alliance they want and the alliances the freedom to allow new members based on their own merits rather than based upon a quota.  There just isn't a situation where that's going to work.

Edited June 9, 2014 by Nick GhostWolf

[ddgr8]

• Alliance limit can be 16 nations-18 nation.
• Alliance 'Score' is redundant and too highly skewed towards alliances with more members
• The same nation IDs should carry forward to all rounds, so that nations (and alliances) can show off older medals won by them. (like Kongland can display all medals ever won by him or his alliance - 3 gold alliance medals, 2 most casualities medals etc. ). Believe me, this works, as basically you get some tangible outcome from a round that you can showcase in subsequent rounds
• Nukes: Open up for everyone, but severely limit how many we can own.. like only one nuke per 5 or 7 days can be made (a further clause, your infra needs to remain above 2000 throughout one week before you can buy a nuke). This will make people very careful of how they use their nukes..

Edited June 9, 2014 by ddgr8

[Auctor]

Alliance caps are really interesting in relation to only being able to trade within alliances. I assume we'd all make multiple AA's and continue the grand TE tradition of bandwagoning and downdeclares regardless.

[kongland]

Great post, Nick. You are right - those change would lead to the destruction of the existing communities and cultures of the permanent alliances, which are homes to their members.

 

There are quite a few members in TE, who are changing the AAs or create temporary AAs nearly each round. They don't have an attachment to any permanent AA, they just have loaylty towards each other. This is a different type of culture and they probably would be even happy with the changes.

 

I'm not saying their culture is better or worse of the one of the permanent AAs/homes, but these changes if implemented for a long term, would destroy most existing communities and kill all the fun for their members. You know what people would do with no interest left here.

 

Any cap on membership numbers would be bad - just think about noobs being isolated out there and being destroyed in all wars - in weak AAs or as Nones.

[Nick GhostWolf]

 

• Alliance limit can be 16 nations-18 nation.
• Alliance 'Score' is redundant and too highly skewed towards alliances with more members
• The same nation IDs should carry forward to all rounds, so that nations (and alliances) can show off older medals won by them. (like Kongland can display all medals ever won by him or his alliance - 3 gold alliance medals, 2 most casualities medals etc. ). Believe me, this works, as basically you get some tangible outcome from a round that you can showcase in subsequent rounds
• Nukes: Open up for everyone, but severely limit how many we can own.. like only one nuke per 5 or 7 days can be made (a further clause, your infra needs to remain above 2000 throughout one week before you can buy a nuke). This will make people very careful of how they use their nukes..

 

 

1. see above posts for my position on that, pretty clear

2. this is a pretty good idea; perhaps the alliance "score" formula can be changed?

3. i love this idea.  Even a basic "history" tab that stores a registered persistent ruler name's round-to-round history in terms of NS, medals, prizes, etc. would be great.  if alliances are going to awarded prizes as a whole it may even be prudent to add a display like this to the alliance's statistics/charts page.

4. the clause that infra needs to remain above 2000 infra for a week seems pretty unreasonable however after weighing the removal of the MP, it might be a good idea to set the minimum purchase requirement for nukes at 2000 infra (the current 200 tech is pretty reasonable in my opinion).  Seeing as with an HNMS people can add up to 6250 NS to themselves simply by stocking and war-dodging, putting themselves in a sort of permanent upper tier, i also really like the concept of limiting how many nukes you can purchase.  Maybe 10 without HNMS, 15 with.  Nuke purchase intervat one per day (2 with WRC) seems reasonable.

[Samwise]

I'm thinking of the following changes for Round 31. Your feedback please:

• No Manhattan project wonder. Replace with EMP Wonder (where nukes can target more technology and less infrastructure and vice versa, players get to decide what they want to target when they launch their nuke). Only top 5% can get nukes.

Taking out the MP is a great idea. It widens the already huge gap between alliances that can work together and one's that can't be bothered. People without nukes will struggle in war against nations with nukes, but the same rules apply as normal rounds - Nukes harm your income, and buying to top 5% means you'll be left with less cash whereas decent nation builders will have the money saved to rebuild post war. Most people aren't decent nation builders though. Then you consider the small member base in TE, being in the top 5% of nations means there are only 26 nuke nation slots if you go by the membership count the last round ended with. Basically this change will help the elite nations, and harm the masses. So it's a great idea in that it forces players to use strategy, but most will not, and it will only discourage them to play, and likely further shrink our member count.

As for the EMP, I'm not really sold on it. If we keep the MP in, then perhaps, but otherwise you're overpowering nations with nukes when they already have a huge advantage.
 

• Get rid of the current prize structure. Bring back Most Casualties. Limit alliances in size to 10 members each. Top 3 nations prizes will be determined based on the top 3 nations by nation strength in the alliance that has the Most Alliance Casualties.

Casualties mean nothing. Casualties do not go to nations that war the hardest, or even the most often. Infra yields casualties so long as you don't turtle. It's an award that's important to the players of tournament edition, and people with top casualties should win something, but it should never be a main award.

I don't agree with caps on alliance size. If you decide to cap them, at least do 12, and not 10 members. Enough for 2 trade circles or 4 3-man strike teams.
 

• Can only trade within your alliance.

If you up the number to 12, I'd be okay with this.
 

• Bring back foreign aid. Can only aid within your alliance.

This will be ridiculously exploited - No matter what restrictions you put on it. Then again, as Donnerjack was made aware, cheating such as warslot filling/spy slot filling/multies/collusion/etc... is rampant in TE. At least we can check nations exploiting the FA system on our own, ...so iSupport??
 

• Roll out the war related improvements from SE to TE. Forward Operating Base adds +1 offensive war slot. As such, Forward Operating Base will be more expensive.

iSupport.
 

• Roll out the crime index from SE to TE along with it's improvements and the airport improvement.

Crime index is too confusing to new players to be honest. Most people play TE because they want to blow stuff up, and while crime index gives the econ nerds a toy to enjoy and play with, most aren't econ nerds. It'll just turn people off, and not a necessary addition to TE. Airports can't hurt. I'd recommend upping their aircraft cost reduction for TE, since aircraft are one of the only items where prices aren't reduced for TE and as a result usually the biggest drain on a warchest.

[Nick GhostWolf]

Airports can't hurt. I'd recommend upping their aircraft cost reduction for TE, since aircraft are one of the only items where prices aren't reduced for TE and as a result usually the biggest drain on a warchest.

 

I'd almost extend this suggestion to increasing the effect of aircraft cost reduction by Airports, possibly as much as 50%.  Maybe even add a cost reduction effect to the FAFB wonder; it only ever seems to get used for raising NS at the end of the game in the current state.

[StevieG]

Trading should NOT be restricted to inter AA especially if there is a cap on AAs.

 

This harms us recruiting nations for trades, and increases the 5% as well. :S

 

No MP is really gonna be hard on some AAs

[Nick GhostWolf]

Almost makes more sense to just drop the MP and the top 5% requirement, slash the base max nuke count in half to ten (HNMS gives usual benefit), increase the nuke price a notch or two, and set the bar at 2k infra and 200 tech to purchase nukes.  Since 200 tech is the baseline for nuke purchases, having the tech/WRC bonus for nukes start at 200 tech seems fair as well (i.e. 0.1%/0.2% damage increase per tech level after 200) almost seems like common sense although I can see how some may disagree with that. Make it feasible for all, but handicapped versus SE and you'll make people think before firing off the nukes and offset the "early nuke" advantage that we frequently see turn into a serious handicap.

[Knights111]

Another change you forgot: The French Empire

[hartfw]

Almost makes more sense to just drop the MP and the top 5% requirement, slash the base max nuke count in half to ten (HNMS gives usual benefit), increase the nuke price a notch or two, and set the bar at 2k infra and 200 tech to purchase nukes.  Since 200 tech is the baseline for nuke purchases, having the tech/WRC bonus for nukes start at 200 tech seems fair as well (i.e. 0.1%/0.2% damage increase per tech level after 200) almost seems like common sense although I can see how some may disagree with that. Make it feasible for all, but handicapped versus SE and you'll make people think before firing off the nukes and offset the "early nuke" advantage that we frequently see turn into a serious handicap.

 

I like this.  

[DrT Skynet]

This seems like an excellent proposal by Nick GhostWolf.  One of the better concepts to address nukes and nuke capability.  With this in place, should the SDI be tossed as well ... eliminating the Skynet so to speak even though it was working less than 50% of the time last round for me anyway.

[Nick GhostWolf]

This seems like an excellent proposal by Nick GhostWolf.  One of the better concepts to address nukes and nuke capability.  With this in place, should the SDI be tossed as well ... eliminating the Skynet so to speak even though it was working less than 50% of the time last round for me anyway.

 

Seeing as the new military improvements are coming in and give you the option to reduce infra damages from nukes, I could see this as feasible.  Or, give it a change perhaps?  Maybe make the SDI's effectiveness contingent upon how many Satellites/Missile Defenses you have?  If removed completely, I can see Satellites and Missile Defenses becoming "afterthought" improvements that don't really contribute much.  The modifiers to cruise missile damage without the higher purpose of the SDI are so negligible compared to other improvements that increasing their effect would make sense.  This is just based on personal experience but generally I don't bother with them unless I'm planning on getting an SDI simply because the slots are better used retaining my econ improvements for the rebuild and building GC's/Barracks.

 

I think I heard someone mentioning allowing targeting with the cruise missiles to hit ships, aircraft etc; that would seem sufficient to balance them.

Edited June 9, 2014 by Nick GhostWolf

[admin]

Thanks for the feedback thus far. I've updated my OP. Please continue to provide feedback as the OP is currently written.

[Auctor]

If everyone could have three default trades and only four trade trade slots max, it would be interesting.

[hartfw]

I'm thinking of the following changes for Round 31. Your feedback please:

• No Manhattan project wonder. Replace with EMP Wonder (where nukes can target more technology and less infrastructure and vice versa, players get to decide what they want to target when they launch their nuke). Only top 5% can get nukes.
• Get rid of the current prize structure. Bring back Most Casualties. Limit alliances in size to 10 members each. Top 3 nations prizes will be determined based on the top 3 nations by nation strength in the alliance that has the Most Alliance Casualties.
• Can only trade within your alliance.
• Bring back foreign aid. Can only aid within your alliance.
• Roll out the war related improvements from SE to TE. Forward Operating Base adds +1 offensive war slot. As such, Forward Operating Base will be more expensive.
• Roll out the crime index from SE to TE along with it's improvements and the airport improvement.

After reading through the feedback and thinking on things a bit more here's what I'm currently thinking:

• Regarding Nukes - drop the top 5% requirement, MP will be required by everyone to purchase nukes, nukes cost $500,000 base, and requires 200 tech and 2,000 infras (these are also the same requirements to buy a MP), nuke limit will be 10 (+5 with HNMS)
• Pentagon allows for +1 offensive war slot.
• Nukes can target higher tech or higher infras damage based on player choice when launching the nuke.
• Roll out the war related improvements from SE to TE. Also roll out the airport improvement.
• Get rid of the current prize structure. Top two prizes will be Most Casualties and Highest Peak Infrastructure. Three additional prizes will be awarded to the top 3 nations by nation strength in the alliance that has the Most Alliance Casualties.

 

Round 31 will begin on Saturday 6/14/14 (mid-morning).

 

Highest peak infrastructure and highest casualties should coincide.  I would drop most infra.  Maybe go for most destructive instead of highest peak infra -- getting most destructive will be hard without hurting your alliances causalities and definitely hard without hurting your own.  If there is any way to make it cumulative round wide damage, that would make me even happier.

 

Actually, I might recommend most land (its new, and rewards either warring a ton successfully or buying up in an inefficient way making a new path to a prize open.)