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nik718

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Everything posted by nik718

  1. [quote name='nik718' timestamp='1299508461' post='2655429'] Under Team Statistics, there is still an old calculus for the percent of active nations. I assume it should be the same as under the alliance statistics. [/quote] This is old, nobody addressed it. Bump, please. Team statistics: http://www.cybernations.net/stats_team_stats.asp -- "Percent Active" column.
  2. A big bow to the new GPA HoF members! Congrats!
  3. Thanks for the heads up, Admin! If I can suggest, I would say making wars more "profitable" would most definitely spice things up and make players actually use ALL of the possible military in order to maximize "the victory" rather just slinging nukes for direct damage. Currently, every kind of war in TE is a pure and huge economical loss, no matter if you win it 100%. Nations who are in peace the fragment of the round just overgrow anybody in couple of days. GA loots cap needs to be set much higher. We should coordinate all military assets and fight wars to push through a sucessfull GA, not to pile up max troops and hope enemy will make a failing GA which will earn 10-15 times more money then one succesful of ours. IMHO, ofcourse. More of my thoughts about TE, here: http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?showtopic=92255&st=80&p=2691059&#entry2691059 Cheers for the succesful start of the Round 17!
  4. Under Team Statistics, there is still an old calculus for the percent of active nations. I assume it should be the same as under the alliance statistics.
  5. Does anybody have a archive of past Foreign Aid Statistics Files? I have recently started compiling my own archive, but would like to have some more from the past. Month or two back, at least. Please be so kind and let me know if you have them and you are willing to share. Also, if you can direct me to a person who might have them, this would also be much appreciated. Thanks!
  6. Today I have spent couple of hours in additional analysis of CN Statistics Files. I have come to a conclusion that my initial statement that the problem could be users ability to delete expired FAs. I was wrong. This is [b]not[/b] true because every FA gets its Status field changed to Expired after 10 days in CN Statistics, no matter if the FA was still Pending or it was Approved. So, if ever FA gets to be Expired after 10 days, it doesn't really matter if user deletes it even as fast as 0:00:01 AM. If data for the CN Statistics is indeed pulled down to files we get to download at 6PM, there is no certain way to find out true FA transaction status if it was still Pending after 9 days and 18 hours. There are two options: 1. It expired while Pending 2. It expired while Approved in the last 6 hours There is always a chance that the user did not deleted his expired FA, and in-game screen can still show us the true status of it if we look up for it manually, but CN Statistics will propably (I say probably, because I still don't know the mechanics nor timing on how the CN Statistics are put together) not record such a FA properly?!
  7. [quote name='Gopherbashi' timestamp='1290819550' post='2524231'] Nik, this really isn't as big or common an issue as you make it out to be. [/quote] I agree that it may not be as common, but issue (if it is true?!), IMHO, can be a big one - especially if one uses FA Statistics for the alliance economic interaction/program. I was thinking, maybe Admin made sure that data is streamed down to the Statistics ad-hoc, via triggered procedure. Don't know. Still hoping for an answer..
  8. [quote name='jerdge' timestamp='1290798787' post='2523929'] Hello nik, following your IRC request: no, I don't know more than what you and Gopher already said. I also have to add: accepting an aid offer just before its expiration and then deleting it might be an in-game tactic to not take responsibility for the action, which is a possible (albeit unlikely) source of drama/"innovative" tactics that a "fix" like the one you propose would eliminate. By the way: "unlikely" but not impossible and not even "unseen": part of the CB of GOD/Argo/& on AHEAD in the LoFN war relied on the wrong assumption that, some weeks/months before, I had accepted an aid offer from an enemy of theirs; while instead I had let it expire without accepting it. Not the exact same situation but similar enough for me to think that the existence of this possibility might be good for gameplay.[/quote] Hmm, interesting. So, if I understand correctly, the time window of 12 hours; last 6 hours at the end of each FA Offer and 6 hours after it turned to Expiration (with or without being Accepted) could be interpreted/used as some kind of a In Character "shade", because there would be no other ways to retrieve relevant/correct information other than in-game monitoring of an appropriate FA screen at update + some hours. I suppose I could live with that, but such aproach kind of beats the core purpose of Downloadable Statistics which are - "[i]These data output files are made available to you to allow for statistics gathering without breaking the Cyber Nations terms and conditions that prohibit automated screen scrapping and other automated scripts or bots that interact with the game[/i].". [quote name='jerdge' timestamp='1290798787' post='2523929'] About the problem with the tracking of "legitimate" Aid, one could always ask the sender if s/he received the acceptance PM - which in turn doesn't expire for seven other days. I know that it's more workload but at least it's inter-players interaction, which IMO isn't that bad. If we were to make a "fix", in fact, I'd say that the expiration of an aid pack that wasn't accepted could trigger a PM to the sender (much like the PM we now receive when a Trade Partner deletes).[/quote] Good ideas, but IMHO, both of these suggestions effectively negate the purpose of Downloadable Statistics. One can always use alliance forum infrastructure for the data gathering he needs, maybe use some external tools like Google Docs, or god forsake, set up a data grabbing bot, but why, if such feature with its main purpose is already present under Cyber Nations Statistics Files, neat, quick and painless. All you need to do is to have some data manipulation skills and "play" with it. Ofcourse, provided that you know and handle the "relativity" and truthfulness of provided data. In other words, may it be, the main purpose of this thread?! Damn, this is getting complicated. This morning when I was starting this thread, all I had in mind was a quick response like: "yes, nik, all the data is explicit, up to date and in order", so I could practice and enjoj my TSQL sessions in clear conscience. Still, OP stands. Looking forward to hear/find the answer to it.
  9. [quote name='Chocolate Cookies' timestamp='1290786501' post='2523822'] There is a problem with your scenerio. Foreign aid expires 10 days after it is [i]approved[/i], not after it is sent as you imply here. Therefore, it would have to be caught at some point during those 10 days. [/quote] I am pretty sure that Foreign Aid expires at update of the 10th day after it has been sent, and it is free for a user to be deleted. [quote name='Chocolate Cookies' timestamp='1290786501' post='2523822'] Also, the script probably does not run at update, since it is a time of peak traffic (at least during wars). [/quote] That is exactly my concern, too. If someone is up at the update, he will probably clear up his expired Foreign Aids if he has nothing better to do (I know I do it, and I do it on semi-automatic basis), but in the case in which he accepted it couple of hours before, such Foreign Aid might actually never be caught in the Downloadable Statistics as "Approved". The Status flag is very important for everybody who wants to make use of FA statistics, and I would hate to see this little "spell" happening. Practical digression - I always tell trainees (small nation which just started selling tech) to accept their money for tech deal at 9th day, so they can effectively avoid being a "rich sitting ducks" for raiders, and it would come to no surprise to me for people to actually do that - accept FAs in the second half of the 9th day (after 6 PM). In the case such a player deletes his expired FAs after the update, being it intentional or unintentional, something which is not to be unexpected, especially since the possibility for such an action is open, it will render FA downloadable statistics with an error! The big one. I have to say, I still don't know where we stand on the matter/scenario, but, would 24 hours no-deletion restriction on expired FA be too much to assume? [quote name='Gopherbashi' timestamp='1290788562' post='2523833'] The foreign aid statistics are collected at 6 AM and 6 PM daily. [/quote] Well, if possible, I would really like that to be confirmed by the admin or the staff, presumably, after some of them have read this thread and understood what I am talking about. It would make me happy to be wrong in this one!
  10. Hello, I have one quick technical question regarding Statistics Downloads. Since I am not familiar with the execution mechanics and timeframe of the process which generates FA Statistics of in-game data, I am concerned that due to a nonexistent restriction on deletion of expired Foreign Aid from the user, some Foreign Aids might never end up in the Statistics as "Approved", even thou that in-game, they had such a status. For instance, scenario in which someone accepts FA on the 9th day at 11:59:59 PM, and deletes it (as expired, yet approved) a few seconds later, lets say at 12:00:05 AM. That would mean that FA Statistics generation process would need to be triggered at exactly few seconds in between. Does the database dump script ever "catches" such cases with an Approved flag? Thanks!
  11. Technically speaking, I do not think that declining number of nations is such a big issue, because 21k is still a huge number. Heck, even if it would be 5k, it would still be good enough in case most of the nations are active, healthy players. Here are few of ideas which I support: 1) Update nation activity on log-in/log-out, not on collect! 2) Remove the IP restrictions for an ACCOUNT and scale them down to TRADE slots, FA slots, WAR slots and SPY slots. This way, different people could actually run their nation independently from family network, work network or big student networks. Just make a script which does not allow trades, FAs, war and spy "slot filling" with nations on a same IP. Even if someone circumvent it somehow, next time they "hit" the same IP (log-in process), just automatically cancel ALL of their trades and FAs with a script, and lock their trade/FA slots EMPTY for a 30 days of "punishment" cool-down period. In case of war slot and spy slot filling, kick the violator into the 30 days peace mode. Do not practice strict nation deletion policy, rather impose repression which will "teach" players the rules. 3) Do NOT delete nations because of inactivity, rather strip them of their trades, FAs and war connections with other nations and "freeze" them in "inactive mode". Next time they log in (maybe in 3 months), let them resume their nation with 0 days of inactivity and 20 days of bills. Make so that inactive mode can be triggered only via script at 25 days of inactivity. 4) Do NOT allow bill locks by, for instance, removing wonder upkeep for a nations of less than 1000 infra. 5) Put protections for new nations. Free 30 days of no war in war-mode for all new nations. 6) Education of new nations - remind them of community and AA significance every 5 days if AA = None! 7) Slight gameplay mechanich adjustments I'd like to see: - limit the collections by giving a happiness penalty when money reserves are over 500M, 1B, 2B, 3B, 4B, 5B.. etc. - introduce peak infra and peak land figures - 50% cheaper infra and land if under peak reached value for each nation. - allow haste of a wonder cycles for money; for instance, if one wants to build wonder on 29th day - 1M additional cost, 28th days - 2M additional cost, 27th day - 6M additional cost, 26th day - 10M additional cost, 25th day - 15M additional cost, 24th day - 24M additional cost, 23rd day - 31M additional cost, etc.
  12. Resource system in CN is complex, but in the same time much unbalanced. It is extremely strong when compared to other aspects of the game and thus starting combos and aquired resources play a over-important role in every nation development and abilities. I have a slightly more sophisticated idea for TE. Make trades - hidden. Meaning, every nation could import resources from a "market", not from other nations, which is not directly based on what other people have, their activity, offers, deletions etc., instead, give them a chance to combine their own resource setup thru a gameplay, under a specific circumstances. For instance, one would unlock second pair of resources (resources picked by a player from a list) at 1000 working citizens, third pair at 2500 working citizens, fourth pair at 6000 working citizens, etc. (I leave a numbers for adjustment to someone who is more familiar with TE system). This way, everybody would be able to combine their setup more freely, have a motivation for growth, avoid frustration and skipping rounds due to bad resources, etc., and at the same time, the correlation of aquired resources to a nation size would start to play a big strategical and tactical role in using a military systems to meet every nation and alliance goals.
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