Vhalen

I'm confused. I thought these were valid reasons in SE.

I'd hazard a guess that the 7 and 2 got reversed, and it was actually 12.78 (which would mean a .42 gain), but that's just speculation.

OOC: You must not know who you're talking to. Stryke's a pretty firm "honor before pixels" sort.

Yeah, diskord said he'd be away for a few days, a page or two back, so I think you may have elected yourself to cover the updates.

Heck, lately I barely pay attention to my CN:S nation. I've actually been considering just letting it inactivity delete. Doesn't really seem like there's much worthwhile there. So I guess I, for one, am a little more interested in Planet Carl than Planet Bob at present.

I think it's mostly just holdover from CN:SE. Personally, I don't think Military Upkeep's too big an issue (at least until later), and you're better off with Soldier Efficiency and Initial Infra Cost.

I started with monarchy, but really any -5% infra cost will do, and you can change to whatever you want (I'd recommend something with troop efficiency - if your people want democracy or federal, they'd be outstanding) after you buy your initial infra. First thing, pay bills (or get trades and pay bills, if you're really fussy about the $3-4). Then get trades for construction if it's at all feasible, buy your initial tech (gold isn't bad for this, and 60's probably a good spot, but season to taste), and THEN buy your infra for harbor/etc. No sense buying tech without resource discounts, after all. Improvements are an area where there seem to be a lot of different tactics. Factories aren't a bad idea, I don't think, especially since you're undoubtedly going to be buying tanks now and then, and you're going to want infra too. If you're planning on building and being largely defensive, I'd say to start with some banks or factories. If you're planning on being particularly aggressive, maybe g.camps or barracks would be better. Whatever you decide, work on finishing up your trades quickly. Try to stay in-color, but if you get 4 of 5 and need something specific, be willing to go out of color at least temporarily. Better to have all your trades than to fuss too much over 1 happy. Now, I had little trouble with trades, because I created the first night, had decent starting resources, and there were tons of people coming in who also wanted to set up trades. It may be a little slower now that a lot of that is over, and a lot of slots are already full. I just went ahead and did all my initial development at once, figuring if I looked half-built, people would (reasonably) go after me expecting a nice cash payout. I think too much tech and not enough infra means low troop numbers (and good loot), which makes you a target, so I'm skeptical of spending too much on tech initially (especially when you can acquire it otherwise). I'd buy some land while it's cheap...the first 50 are almost free, and the next sets aren't too bad either. Once you're all set, buy some troops to get your population content, collect, then go to Defcon 1 and top off your troops and tanks. I won't go into planning war strategy here, since it's beyond the focus of the thread, but I will say that having a decent population and keeping your soldiers and tanks fairly full should discourage random attacks pretty well (there are usually easier targets somewhere). Also, getting an air force, even a small one, within the first week should help your image (I wouldn't get a ton of level 1 planes, since you'll want to replace them sooner than later, but if you can get 2's or 3's pretty quickly, I'd consider it). If you're really worried, you could consider picking up a few CMs. They should talk borderline would-be attackers out of choosing you in lieu of easier prey, especially if you're willing to use them. Personally, I probably won't buy any unless I get swarmed, but I can see how they'd be beneficial. I wouldn't go overboard on either air force or CMs early, though, as they don't really help you as much as development does, at this point, and they just pile up bills (if you're using them, it's different). Hmm...what else. Oh, try to stay in Defcon 1 most of the time, except when you're collecting. Good luck!

In the shortened round that ended Aug 30th (14 days for me), my first three wars lasted a two days, and other attackers cut the enemy to zero soldiers, yet I was still able to be somewhere near the top when it was over. I suggest that a lot depends on how you do other things, besides just war. I think 3 or 4 days is way too short...if I shortened it, I'd say around 5, but I was mostly basing that off the 14 day period. I feel like in 90 days, each war being (1/3 of) 7.8% of your time isn't all that bad. Keep in mind that, presumably, you can get several days of fighting in (as you claimed) before an opponent turtles anyway, so you only lose about half of that, and only if your opponent curls up in the fetal position.

What is your position pertaining to the Appalachian mud squid? Inquiring, um, minds want to know.

Yeah, Admin said update isn't changing. Also, in the last round (most of the players having had two weeks or so), NS for top 50 nations was mid-2000's to mid-3000's, I think. (Dunno about the "first" round, but that's from the short "alpha-test" round that just ended).

Nope, the top scores in the round ending the 30th were low/mid 3000 range. Those were prior to that, because that's the same list that was visible during the 30th's round. Edit: Not sure if it's a bug and it was supposed to show last round's high scores, or if it intends to show highest all-time scores, but I think the latter is what's happening.

I don't see why it really matters, since sanctioning means pretty much nothing in TE. It's not like you get a flag for it, or anything.

Well, I'd prefer that 75% of alliances aren't carried over from regular CN every time, but I doubt that's going to happen. I think TE is a great place for people who haven't had a chance to try out leadership positions to do so. If things don't go well, it won't hurt your CN alliance any, so no big loss if you're one of those who's concerned about that. People from the same CN alliance can face off in friendly competition with no issues. So, I guess I'm for not carrying alliances over from one tourney to another.

Actually, there's no reason you can't have the medal carried over to future TE rounds, since it allows you to keep your same identity.

Most of the comments about the 7 day wars are from people who are attacking, as opposed to people defending. Upon further thought, I think this short alpha period highlights every "clogged war slot" much more than a 90-day cycle would, so it won't be nearly as noticeable over a longer period. In short, having considered this, you're probably right. However, over the (essentially) 14-day period most of us are playing through now, 4 or 5 days of dead time is an eternity, which is why you're seeing the "shorten wars" comment so often. I still think senate terms should be shortened, though!

Ah. Okay, didn't look it up, since it was late. I just kind of posted so I wouldn't forget, and went to sleep.

I agree with that. If you're going to have a prize that credits toward TE, it needs to be something that doesn't affect gameplay.

So, I just got an event, and realized that if it had been a majorly positive or negative event for 30 days, it would quite possibly screw one over or benefit one quite a lot in the 90-day cycle of TE. You might want to consider either shrinking the duration of events or ensuring they're not too strong either way.

The charts look nice, but I wonder if we can't get percentage data on the government and religion charts, as well. I don't know the program, but if it's possible to have it so when you move the cursor over a bar, it says, "Anarchy, Governments, 939 (32.98%)," I think it would be well worth it. It's nice to have that data at a glance rather than have to calculate it every time.

Probably best to just name the prize flags "TE Champ Flag ##," so they're all together on the list. Frankly, I doubt it would be that cluttery even with a couple of flags per tourney. Just leave them out of regular CN, and only include them in TE, and they basically take the place of adding flags for sanctioned alliances. Though, I think you're better off using flags as top alliance prizes, and t-shirts or shop gift certs or whatever for individuals. I really do like the idea of rewarding the top alliance with something easy like that, so that more people feel like they contributed to "winning" the tourney. That way, players who are out of the running for the top nation slots can still have a goal to work towards.

That wouldn't be bad, and would be an easy group prize to spread "awards" beyond just the individual nation winners. I could see adding the winning flag(s) to TE permanently, actually. If it was just the top one or two, it wouldn't really be that big a deal, just a couple of flags every three months. Yeah, I'd lean toward CN-shop gift certificates. Let them be used for donations too, if you want. That just makes it more flexible and makes more people happy.

That makes more sense.

Yeah. I think 20 day terms would allow enough of a turnover for senate to possibly matter a little more. It adds an election cycle and a half, and allows for a dramatic "clean slate" election on day 80, moving into the endgame, whatever that turns out to be. Feels like it would create a little more interest then, anyhow.

Well, that's a tempting offer, "I'll bribe you, but remember, it's not really yours."

I've seen several people suggest lowering the length of wars, and I agree with that as well. I'd say five days is about right, for the aforementioned reasons as well as this: I've noticed that if you attack someone and they immediately drop their soldiers, or, say, get ganked by two other people and overwhelmed, you now end up with war slots tied up with someone you can't peace out with, and can't get spoils from, for 5 or 6 days. So, essentially, because you attack, you lose war slots for much longer than you're actually fighting. I'd hazard a guess that you'd get two days of attacks most of the time against nations who're going to quit, or who'd use turtling/locking-up-slots as a tactic, before attacking becomes a waste of time, so with five-day wars, you'd only have three "dead" days, as opposed to five days with seven-day wars. Also, I'd recommend shortening senate terms a bit. Instead of a 15 & 30 day cycle, I'd say a 10 & 20 day cycle is probably better. (That would put it approximately on ratio with the other time changes already done, and the recommended five-day war change.) Finally, I'm not sure how long it takes to delete inactives, but if it's 20 days, that seems a bit silly. The game is only 90 days, and if you're back-collecting for 19 days at some point in there, I think you're doing something wrong. Gut says halve it, but that's just a guess. TL;DR: Recommend war duration reduced to 5 days, senate terms reduced to 20, and "inactivity deletion" limit reduced.