The Syzygian Hall of Ages

Your nation is 666 days old today so I'll play Devil's Advocate. What's the point of years of building and positioning for power if when you get to the top you find yourself bored asking for administration to code in some kind of pixel attrition that makes everyone else not want to reach for the top anymore? This is a nation simulation game but at it's heart it is a war game. If you were more happy at 3999 infrastructure then go to war and beat your opponents to hell while you're at it.

Hmmm.

I'm not sure there really is a change anymore, Syzygy. Nowadays the way for new nations to reach 5K infra is by some kind of foreign aid boosting, fundamentally. Invicta members do it via tech selling, Grämlins do it via your banking credit system, and pretty much everyone uses the same scheme: import a ton of cash via foreign aid, back-collect a few times, buy a whack of factories, and march up the infra scale.

Everyone is buying the same improvements in the same order now. Well, except for the people who don't follow the approved path as laid out by Fepereir, BEFORE I STARTED PLAYING, who are looked down upon by all the experienced players.

The only questions left are over wonder order. When do you buy an SDI, are Manhattan Projects really worth it, are FSS/FAC ever going to be fixed to become useful, etc. But even the economic wonders have gotten standardized in terms of their order: buy an SM, SSS, Interstate, DRA...

Nearly every player I know, and I know a lot of players in different factions in the game, plays because of the community that they're in. There are a lot of awesome communities in this game, and people stick around because they enjoy the social aspect first. The gameplay is something nearly everyone complains about: one aspect or another.

Its a very good idea, at the minute once you get to the top its all gravy which is not how larger nations work (in simulation terms) the larger an administration the more waste and more corruption. This is the reason why in real life the EU has never had its accounts signed off. To much waste and corruption.

Admin: The power balance which has arisen in the game makes total war or any unplanned war impossible therefore 'simply going to war' is not actually simple. War is a feature of alliances not a feature of nations unless they are suicidal, and what he suggests is something specifically tailored to nations not alliances.

There must be something that stops larger nations constantly accellerating far faster than any small nation could ever catch.

Your nation is 666 days old today so I'll play Devil's Advocate. What's the point of years of building and positioning for power if when you get to the top you find yourself bored asking for administration to code in some kind of pixel attrition that makes everyone else not want to reach for the top anymore? This is a nation simulation game but at it's heart it is a war game. If you were more happy at 3999 infrastructure then go to war and beat your opponents to hell while you're at it.

Unfortunately the scenario is a lot more complex. You can of course do that and have your fun with blowing up some unaligneds (because attcking an alliance will bring you pretty soon on some ZI list what will be your end in BillLock for eternity, which basically ends your game). But, the unaligneds are in most cases so constantly raided that they won't even fight back, or are already under attack by 2 other guys. Even IF you are that lucky and find some targets, you are then rather excluded from the more interesting game - the political one. People in CN listen to power. Not to good intentions, not to interesting ideas. If you are representing an alliance with some hundred nuclear weapons and a few allies who ALSO have a few hundred or thousand nuclear weapons and other allies as well, and you can throw the weight of a few million NS, hundreds of SDIs, Manhattan Projects, WRCs and whatnot on the table - THEN you can take part in the real interesting global politics which influence the CN political landscape somewhat. You can achieve this either via Individual Strength (small numbers, high strength) like my alliance does, or via sheer numbers (many hundred nations, but smaller ones) like most of the sanctioned alliances do. Since I never wanted nor now want to be a member of a large alliance, 'growth' is basically a requirement to be involved in the big-business for me. Just 'going to war to have your fun' would simply remove all the fun on the political side of the game - But that is absolutely not nessessary, why shouldn't it be possible to create a game that gets MORE interesting the more time and effort you invest into mastering it? Most games work this way, especially the successful ones.

And: Additional mechanics at the top (problems) would NOT make people 'not want to reach' these heights - because you ALSO offer a lot of nice stuff as reward which they CANNOT build if they stay down where they avoid the 'problems'. Wonders, Weapons, Units, whatever. People WILL want to have all that shiny stuff, so they WILL grow and deal with Crime, Corruption, Unemployment, Pollution, whatever - because doing so gives them access to more interesting features. "Bigger Guns" if you wanna say so.

I understand your position, but I get the feeling that you will never get satisfied. The more the game changes the more changes you'd want to make.

Constant improvement will not be the satisfaction of your boredom, in my opinion.

It is of course something that has been an issue of our society / community for the past 1000 years. People are never happy / have never been happy with the state of something because there is always space for improvement. That of course can be seen as something positive, since our world would probably be still in the stone ages without this special desire of humanity. However, I think sometimes the desire for constant improvement is misplaced especially when it comes to a game. Constant "improvements" will not just change the rules but also change the philosophy and the rules of the game. I am opposed to too many changes especially since most people are not playing Cybernations because of the game mechanics but because of the community that surrounds the game. Enjoy the game as it is, and if you don't find in enjoyable anymore, try to enjoy the benefits of the community. The game is certainly not perfect, but too many changes to the game might make it "less" enjoyable for many people.

I fail to see why people which (as you just said) are more enjoying the "community" could enjoy the game 'less' just because it offers more options for other player who want to enjoy the actual game more?

Maybe that is only the fear that if 'individual skill' would acutally play a bigger role in the game, others would perform better and they are afraid of their own comfortable position?

If a defender could INDEED fight back 3 attackers if he makes the right decisions (maneuvers) in the right moments and his opponents make mistakes or lack skill - that would endanger the "status quo" we currently have where numbers can overwhelm nearly everything. In almost every other game you always have 'special moves' 'combo moves' 'finishing moves' 'agility skills' and what not so if you specialize for combat, you can defeat even 2 or 3 players who have refused to learn all these skills and spells and moves because they are lazy or careless. Being able to get the advantage because of higher mastery level IS one of the biggest factors for an successful online game - and it would hurt in *no way* the existing communities.

Why would it hurt anyone if there would be mechanisms wich allow other players to experience more fields of gameplay? If you don't like them, follow a standard guide and simply ignore them?

I haven't been talking about "people" I talked about / to you as an individual and creator of this blog. I was trying to express that if you feel the actual game boring you can try to find other parts more exciting.

However I think that there is not much space for individual skill in a game like CN. Not because I wouldn't like that, but merely because it is nearly impossible to code. No matter how difficult admin will make certain things, no matter how many variables he'll use, it won't take long until you have a clear written guide which exactly describes you what to do, and reading a guide and following its advice has nothing to do with individual skill anymore.

However I think that there is not much space for individual skill in a game like CN. Not because I wouldn't like that, but merely because it is nearly impossible to code. No matter how difficult admin will make certain things, no matter how many variables he'll use, it won't take long until you have a clear written guide which exactly describes you what to do, and reading a guide and following its advice has nothing to do with individual skill anymore.

Some Things are wrong with that:

1. Not all people do research&testing. Some people will get results faster, some slower, dependent on the effort they put into the matter and their skill to actually find out cause and effect. Caring vs Carelessness has an effect.

2. The speed of adaptation differs, some alliances take longer to educate their membership, some can do it quicker. There will be alliances who share knowledge with others, and alliances who keep their research secret. Quality of communication and internal education progams has an effect. Skilled alliances will benefit, inactive/lazy ones not.

3. Not everyone even reads or sticks to guides. There are still LOTS of people who make pretty bad decisions regarding their trades, aid usage, improvement order or wonder purchase, even while pretty good guides for all that is already public knowledge, they don' even need an alliance for that. They simply dont care or dont understand it. Strengthening the impact of different decisions makes skilled players gain a higher advantage over careless players.

4. Code can work event-based, so that the same question requires a different answer and the same situation requires a different reaction depending on the circumstances (Current Infralevel, State of War, Government etc...). A 'simple guide' will be unable to cover all eventualities, so people need to THINK before they act.

5. One bad thing of the current code is, that all changes have an INSTANT effect. Basically you can switch between Governments, Religions, DEFCONs and whatnot instantly, as you need it. People can simply do all things with the 'Best choices'. Thats bad. Code effects in a way that they increase and reach their full impact after the new Government has been 'worked in', so people need Timing and Planning to get the best efficiency of their results. A simple example is DEFCON. Currently everyone fights in DEFCON1 and collects in DEFCON5. The *intentional* tax-penalties for the higher DEFCON levels are not even used, because everyone avoids them by instantly switching between those two levels. A much better way would be: DEFCON1 increases your battlestrength by +10% per day up to 130% after 3 days. Same if going backwards. Decisions require time to take effect. If you notice an alliance is gearing up for war, it might be clever to alert the own nations so they can increase alert levels as well. If nothign happens and the other alliance goes back to DEFCON5, fine, do the same. Same is for Governmental changes - the effects should be more DIFFERENT, but they should grow over time, not happen instantly. Clever scheduling and pre-planning for a week or two will offer great benefits, doing everything with the same setup just average results. People NEED to actually face the disadvantages of their decisions TOO, while right now the only *competition* is "who can exploit the systems the best" (Improvement Switching, BackCollecting, DEFCON Manipulation, Sitting out Events, TankSwitching, UpdateBlitzing etc...). Everyone is grabbing for the Benefits of the good decisions, but totally cancels out the disadvantages which SHOULD be bound to them. Or do you think LaborCamps have a -1 Happiness Penalty to make people raze them before they collect? No, they have that because people need to make a sacrifice: Trade 10% infra bills vs 1 happiness. But right now, people are simply exploiting that system to make profit with it.

Make decisions have long-term effects and close all these exploits and skilled players WILL perform noticably better than lazy players, which creates motivation to master the game better than others -> competition.

I haven't been talking about "people" I talked about / to you as an individual and creator of this blog. I was trying to express that if you feel the actual game boring you can try to find other parts more exciting.

Oh, I have fun, thats not the reason why I write this blog. I have many other ways to have my fun in this game beyound the pure game mechanics. But, I see this game as a Beta Version which could be a Jewel. It offers right now a very nice skeleton concept of nation building, politics and war. The admin can create (imho) a true masterpiece here over time, by giving more depth of gameplay to people who want that, without making that a requirement for survival. So, make the effects of the "advanced gameplay" decent, but noticable long term. Players who don't want that will still be able to do anything and reach anything they want - but players who DO want to master these things, will just be quicker & stronger. Like in every other game.

Most games do offer more game play as you get further through it, but there is also a point where, for most games, you conquer them, have done all there is to do, and move on to the next game.

Obviously we don't really want that with this game, but I think nation growth has exceeded admin's initial expectations and gone beyone ths scope of what he originally intended... I'm sure he never intened nations would have billions of dollars and be sitting on it.

Having said that, most of your suggestions here and on the boards I feel would increase enjoyment in the game and player longetivity.

I agree with Syzygy here. There is no harm in creating more intellectual gameplay at the top ranks because these players have already proven to care about strategy, game mechanics, efficiency, etc. They will very much enjoy added complexity. At the same time, we definitely have to flesh out exactly what we are talking about, as we definitely need to maintain the incentive for enormous growth.

Why don't you form a discussion/programming group, and present admin with a synopsis of the more intelligent arguments for and against any given update you propose (although with a thorough mathematical analysis of the proposed updates), along with game code that he can review and install without having to do too much work to satisfy the desires of a few large nations?

I can envision a dedicated offsite forum/IRC for this sort of activity, with different focus groups aimed at achieving particular aims. For example you could work on a focus group that worked on making the game more interesting at higher levels, and some other people could work on making the game more accessible and interesting (thereby hopefully attracting more players), and some other people could work on... I don't even know what. For example, if some people wanted to develop a more complex trading/aiding system, they could sit down and figure out something more interesting/realistic/dynamic than the current one - and present admin with a finely tuned and mathetically examined system.

Maybe admin would be more willing to implement changes if A) they were less work for him, and B) he knew they would not cause problems. Perhaps he could even make a small micro world, with only 6 admin type accounts for player testing of proposed changes. I do not know. But it would not hurt to try, especially if you are bored.

No time. I have very irregulary free time to do some math or brainstorm some suggestions together and back them up with example calculations. I will simply use this blog to "offer ideas" and whoever wants (including the admin) can discuss them or just take them, rework them and or offer the admin to draft even code for it. See this blog as my personal drafting folder, free for everyone to use.

For more, there is absolutely no time, however I have thought about a "Creativity Team" for the Game before (I think I once said so either in the suggestionbox or during a chat with the admin) where some of the players with deep insight and knowledge about the game mechanics can suggest and discuss changes and new features *en detail*, or improve good but fuzzy suggestions from the suggestionbox with math examples and formulae.

Maybe one of my next blog entries will cover that, I wanted to re-suggest it for a long long time, but always forgot it. Thanks for the reminder!