firingline
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Posts posted by firingline
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Just what the world needs - yet another CLAWS treaty!
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HAHA so many brits! very quirky!
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19 hours ago, Jason8 said:
Just wait, we'll be ready for the fresh rebrand in another year.
Things have slowed down a lot. It'll take a few more years to have enough opportunities for PGSG to make an ass of themselves enough to require a rebrand.
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2 hours ago, Sabcat said:
Here's one now, all salty and serious. Bless.
pOwErEd bY wAr. Still making me chuckle a day later. Thanks for that, sadcat.
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1 hour ago, Sabcat said:
Powered by war
One thing's for sure - you are most certainly not a serious person.
That's !@#$@#$ gold.
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10 hours ago, King Cyan said:
How is it still broken and "profitable" as you say especially now when there's incentive to do the opposite (with the 1 mil casualties + SE tech reward now), the money lost from defeat alerts has risen, and you yourself with your other compatriots have probably done so a few times in the past the very thing you "complain" about now?
1) You can turtle and hit 1 million casualties quite easily. These are not mutually exclusive concepts.
2) The money from defeat alerts has not risen. It's the same.
3) I'm sure others have turtled - I don't see what that has to do with whether the current mechanics make sense or not.
Can you please try to channel every ounce of energy and discipline you have into addressing the actual issue at hand?
QuoteFurther elaboration needed, all we were talking about (and the only relevant action taken by admin) was uncapped vs. capped aid.
Which exists within the context of a broader set of game mechanics that must be considered as a whole.
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21 hours ago, King Cyan said:
You know you can shake the game up a whole lot more! It would also beat having to hear your constant howling around these parts
I've been complaining about the broken mechanics behind turtle-nuking for well over a year. Has nothing to do with this round or the fact that we defeated our competition so thoroughly that they had to abandon any hope of competing with one another, merge into one large functional alliance, and petition admin to kill off our banks while protecting theirs.
It's pretty telling that you resort to ad-hominems rather than discuss the actual issue. Seems like you're basically admitting I'm right here.
I will continue to mention how broken the mechanics are until they aren't broken - win, lose or draw. It's just that simple.
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I mean there's no point to any of it right now. It's among the most boring games on earth. The current game mechanics have fatal flaws. The only reason to play at present is the tech bonus.
Aid at least allows there to be some level of excitement. I'd rather have uncapped aid than another round of turtle-nuking.
Capping aid a bit lower makes more sense, granted, and I agree with that. But not without first taking a look at several major problems: dealing with the use of fake "mule" nations, and profitable turtling. Those loopholes are even more dire threats to an enjoyable, fair round than unlimited aid. It's critical that if we limit foreign aid further, we address the other two major issues preventing a competitive round.
Until admin takes a hard look at game mechanics and how they are abused, TE will continue to languish. Maybe we'll have another round where OP just fights itself because nobody else even bothers to play.
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1 hour ago, SirWilliam said:
Y’all living your best lives rent-free in this donut’s head. And he’s bumping your recruitment thread. Life is good. 🌞 !!
Oh and fled? You flatter me. I stumbled.Yeah, darn, I keep bumping it above the last thread that was posted on checks notes Feb. 22nd.
You've got it all figured out, SW! No wonder life is so good!
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18 hours ago, SirWilliam said:
I'd consider this alliance tbh.
Their biggest selling point actually is NO firingline. Hell yeah that's what you're looking for.
"Absolutely NO standards, absolutely NO expectations, and we definitely don't have great players like firingline here."
Keeps getting worse and worse. You may say you'd consider PGSG, but the reality is you fled from that !@#$show of an alliance, so...
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I'd probably avoid this alliance tbh.
Their biggest selling point here seems to be that they have absolutely NO standards and NO expectations. Is that really what you're looking for?
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17 hours ago, Johnny Apocalypse said:
You were frothing at the mouth about aid caps being re-instated for starters.
What?
QuoteYour suggestions have been bad because they are so clearly laden with your own bias and you aren't being impartial.
Uno reverse, I guess? My positions are objectively reasonable and based in a fair discussion around game mechanics and whether they match the desired competitive outcomes. You're the one emotionally lashing out at them to the point that a hill you chose to die on is that admin couldn't possibly edit values within the game because he's incompetent.
QuoteI think if you are a nation in position to be able to send foreign aid then 2k shouldn't be an issue to maintain.
OK, I can see that argument. On the other hand, I worry about closing off aid to those on a losing side of a war while keeping it going for those on the winning side. Thoughts?
QuoteIt solves the issue you consider widespread with "non-participating banks" by forcing them to participate to defend their nations and not turtle if they want to send aid out.
It does not solve that issue. You have to think things through, Johnny. The banks can still build to 4k infra or whatever, collect, get their aid offers out the door, and sell off their infra.
QuoteFor a real world example; North Korea doesn't send out foreign aid because they barely have the infrastructure to support their own nation.
They are sending military aid to Russia literally as we speak.
QuoteAgain; didn't say admin couldn't figure it out,
You did. Stop gaslighting.
QuoteIf he can then great; if he can't then I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.
I mean it's CN, I'm not losing sleep over it anyways, but I'm not going to stop asking for reasonable mechanics changes to make the game more enjoyable for all.
Quote"Just blocking" selling below 1k is too extreme.
Why?
QuoteWhy stop there, why not block selling infra altogether?
Because that's how game mechanics work - you choose a cut-off point. It's currently 25 and I think 1,000 would be better because it prevents certain techniques of hiding.
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Making it so a nation's economy cannot sustain 1k infra before selling it off is what could logically be done to prevent bill-lock, rather than turtle.
Infra cost is like $50-75k per day for 100 infra. It's not a meaningful amount in the context of bill lock / rebuilding. Especially not if we keep foreign aid around like I advocate for.
QuoteBy blocking the sale of infra from 1k you might see turtling come about in the form of getting another alliance to smash their infra right down so they can turtle without selling it.
War slot filling breaks the game's rules. Such nations would be banned by the moderators.
QuoteTurtling shouldn't be profitable, I'm not disputing that.
And yet you're fighting it tooth and nail. Why?
QuoteIt is profitable only in the sense that it stops you losing too much
Again - please stop gaslighting in a thread about game mechanics. This isn't a political / IC thing.
It is objectively profitable in that it's profitable. If you jump to 3,999 infra, collect $80m turtle for a week, lose $3m through defeat alerts (oh boy!), you can then buy to 4,999 or 5,999 infra and collect and end up PROFITING from your decision to simply turtle.
Under my proposal, you'd lose $35m + from turtling and you might just be able to get back to 3,999 infra and not profit. Maybe a little lower. But you certainly won't get to 4,999. As it should be.
Why do you have a problem with this proposal?
QuoteTurtling has only become literally profitable this round because of the extreme amount of cash and tech that can be sent as aid.
No, it's been profitable in the past too. I promise.
QuoteMy point is that whatever suggestion is made and potentially implemented to stop turtling will inevitably mean someone finds a work around to compensate it. By imposing a rule where you cannot ever sell below 1k infra actually limits the ability of anyone to shrink down and whack some turtles. It's cutting your nose off to spite your face.
It would at least be an interesting experiment. I could see it going either way. But keep in mind - TE is temporary. If setting the sell limit from 25 to 1,000 causes major issues for anybody, we can petition admin to change it back.
QuoteOh and as to your question about naming a game where turtling? It happens routinely over in Torn City where it is beneficial to hiding the trenches for a while if severely outnumbered until the opponent blinks long enough to take the opening and return fire on more beneficial terms to you.
I doubt it's actually profitable. You've shown here you're willing to be rather incorrect on the actual outcome of mechanics for the sake of making a point.
QuoteEvading pursuit from your opponents takes on many forms in other games beyond CN trying to remove this strategy entirely is a fools-errand.
Again - turtling is fine. Surviving to fight another day is fine. Turtling being profitable? That's not fine.
QuoteThe best you can hope for is mitigating the extent of it being carried out without penalising those who might need to adopt the strategy for a legitimate reason.
There should absolutely be a penalty for turtling. That's been a thing in CN for a long time. If you are in peace mode, penalties progressively increase. Defeat alerts do more damage than ground attacks.
Only in TE are the penalties insufficient. Only in TE is it actually still profitable.
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13 minutes ago, Johnny Apocalypse said:
@firingline No I'm disagreeing with them because they're bad suggestions, my opinion of you has no bearing on it.
To be clear - this is blatantly untrue.
QuoteKeep aid but nerf the maximum amount to x1.5-x2 the amount possible to send in SE. Keep the 14 day age requirement for sending/receiving aid.
My aid cap suggestions were only marginally higher than this.
QuoteOwning a FAC unlocks sending/receiving aid, requires 2k infra and a Foreign Ministry to be maintained so it can utilised for sending and receiving aid- can only receive aid if below 2k infra after purchasing the FAC.
I don't think requiring maintaining 2k infra is a good idea. It doesn't seem to solve much but might make rebuilding harder.
QuoteStop people buying more infra after they declare a war
I've already said this isn't a terrible idea, but my god, if you think Admin can't figure out how to edit a simple value for DAs, I'm not sure how you expect him to pull this off.
QuoteConversely; prevent people selling less than 1k infra after exceeding this amount
Yeah, that was my suggestion. The bills are literally like $75k per day. We don't need a massive addition to the code here to 'ensure they can afford the bills'. Just block selling below 1,000. The mechanic is currently in place with a value of 25, so this is another quick value edit.
I understand you're somewhat hesitant about this but TE rounds are short. I suggest we implement it and see how it goes. It could always be changed back if it doesn't play out in a positive way.
QuoteYou can argue the case for an "anti-turtle mechanic" but it also does fall to the players to see what we can do about a strategic hurdle ourselves too.
This is one of the arguments you keep retreating to and the fact is I've yet to see a compelling reason that turtling should be profitable. Your only arguments to date are:
-This is too difficult for admin he forgets how all this works
-Get better at the game
These are not compelling reasons to not address a glaring issue that makes no sense. I challenged you earlier to name other games where you can just give up playing for a bit when you've been outplayed, and then end up in an immediately stronger position two minutes after the pummeling is over. It makes no sense.
We both support turtling as a valid mechanic to 'survive to fight another day' if you're getting "pounded on". Nobody thinks that should go away. Though, I will add, I think my suggestion of cutting defensive war slots to two would go a very long way to reducing that sort of thing.
The key that you keep dancing around is the mechanic currently goes beyond that. It goes to a level where turtling is profitable. And THAT makes no sense.
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4 hours ago, Johnny Apocalypse said:
Oh so you do understand code now
Yes.
QuoteI didn't say admin was an idiot;
You basically did.
QuoteI said a lot of the math behind the code is decades old and by his own admission isn't something he recalls with 100% accuracy.
You don't edit code by having it memorized. Admin is 100% capable of changing DA cash loss values. I won't hold any further conversation on this particular topic with you. My advice is to stop being so emotional that you cling so strongly to such insane arguments.
QuoteYou either put words in people's mouths or you outright lie loudly enough to drown other people out.
False.
QuoteThe only people who have openly said the game is no fun have been from AW and more specifically you at considerable length.
There's literally two functional alliances in this game. You saying "the one that turtles has no problem with it" isn't an especially strong argument.
What do you have against discouraging turtling? Why is turtling so important to you?
QuoteI gave one suggestion which you have (as usual) overlooked that I think would be a means of working towards a fix for an issue; preventing people from declaring on someone with 100 infra from buying more infra than they had at the time of declaring their war.
Sure, I'd be fine with trying this change. So long as banks are banned. Because going low to hit banks requires building infra to do damage to them. You are right that it is not a great game mechanic to be able to hit someone then jump massively in infra. It is MUCH less of a problem than the issues I'm discussing, but I do believe it should be addressed.
QuoteIt would stop gratuitous down-declares (regardless of which alliance does them)
To be clear - it wouldn't. Down declares are still incredibly easy even with the mechanical change you are suggesting.
Quoteand would be a step in the right direction to prevent turtling.
It also wouldn't do that. I don't think you have a very solid grasp of the game mechanics. Turtling involves building infra and collecting. The only thing it would prevent is declaring on the way up, which isn't frequently a problem.
QuoteBecause I don't see any reason to believe what you're saying as being credible otherwise
Yeah, we all get it. You don't like me, so you disagree with my suggestions. Because you're an incredibly emotional person.
QuoteYou won't engage with StevieG's counter-argument without dismissing it entirely, you won't engage with mine. Why should anyone bother with yours?
You haven't made a counter-argument beyond "don't make the changes." I'm happy to engage fully in any good-faith discussion, but I will call out when you make objectively false statements.
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1 hour ago, Johnny Apocalypse said:
<blah blah blah I am JA I am very emotional and can't have a basic conversation about game mechanics.>
a) it'd require admin to overhaul a lot of the code and math he's on record saying he's forgotten a lot of how it works nearly 20 years later
The most fundamental change (of amount of cash destroyed) is a simple value edit.
I'm sure Kevin can figure that much out. He's not an idiot.
Quoteb) if someone were to ask for the same "anti-turtling mechanics" in SE? Something tells me you wouldn't be as adamantly in favour of them.
There are already anti-turtling mechanics in SE. The cost of infra combined with higher DA levels makes it impossible to pull off what you can in TE. This is a TE-only problem. Admin made some tweaks with the intent of making rebuild easier, not with the intent of turtle-nuking. A few tweaks can continue to accomplish Admin's likely original intent while solving a loophole that makes the game incredibly boring.
QuoteBut you're right; overhauling the game code to your liking is indeed the only real threat to them at this time, because evidently you aren't one. Don't worry though, I'm sure someone competent enough will come along to challenge them.
Please resist the urge to use this weak-ass bait in what is supposed to be a good-faith conversation about game mechanics. I know we pointed out how irrelevant you and your alliance are - you're going to need to get over it and find a way to move on.
QuoteIt's still the same game,
It's hard to understand your point here.
TE has very real mechanics issues that have been exploited by one alliance in particular for several rounds, to the point that players openly say the game is no fun. Closing a few loopholes would make an improvement here. Besides disliking the person making the suggestions, and saying "nothing can change admin is too dumb to pull that off", what other arguments do you have?
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On 2/22/2024 at 8:19 PM, StevieG said:
Snip
Your idea of TE is incredibly boring and it's why the game was on life support until foreign aid.
The fact that you fight so hard to strengthen turtling as a primary strategy in tournament edition - intended to be a short, action-packed round - is proof of that.
Nobody wants a fight where your opponent only engages if conditions are perfect for them, and otherwise simply sells off their soldiers and waits out the war, only to rebuild to a higher NS literally 3 days later. There's no point in fighting OP because they either win or they take their ball and go home.
Foreign aid (and anti-turtling mechanics) present the only real threats to that status quo and it's why you're so adamantly opposed to them.
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On 2/22/2024 at 8:47 PM, StevieG said:
1. Terrible and way way out of proportion.
DAs have already been increased to 600k. You can lose multiple grounds and be DAd in a single day. Already losing over a million and that's buying and fighting not turteling. Just getting smacked.
So imagine actually fighting and then also getting smacked with 12 million 😂
Way to completely go broke!
If you're turtling you're only getting 1 defeat alert per day.
Losing $600k or even $1m is absolutely nothing. It's how, as I've explained, you can sit and take DAs endlessly and immediately build back stronger.
You can't go completely broke because at $32m, the DAs start only killing $250k in cash.It comes down to the goals here - is the goal to ensure nations have a fair chance to rebuild, or is the goal to have a mechanic that allows anyone on the losing side of the war to effectively ignore war completely and simply rebuild the day after the war ends as if it never even happened? My proposed mechanics help nations 'survive to fight another day' but punish people trying to undermine the war mechanic completely.
Quote2. Also bad. Makes it even easier to avoid war and just defend.
Please explain what you mean. You can't 'avoid war'. You still have two war slots?
Quote3. Is completely dumb. You are creating a bigger fundamental break by trying to make a fix for something that doesn't need it.
No DAs till noon. So you can sleep in? Lol that is really crazy and changes the fundamental aspects too much.
What I am trying to do is utilize DAs as a tool to fight turtling, without making a DA a tool that can be completely taken advantage of by update-active nations. We don't want someone to be able to nuke 5 minutes before update, then send a quick DA that kills $9m cash. DAs should indicate complete defeat.
Quote4. No. Tech boosting should never be a thing.
Why? It's a thing in SE. It's added a huge dynamic to TE.
Quote6. Didn't you sell off NS, and then make a long back collect too?
No. However, I am actively turtling, yes. And I'll grow back stronger than I was before this war. Because the mechanics are fundamentally broken. I should not be able to do this.
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11 hours ago, Johnny Apocalypse said:
- "Non-playing banks" will not be a thing Yes, they will be. Even if you're sure they won't, banning them is a common-sense reform. And it'll have no impact according to you - so name a reason not to.
- The incentive to turtle is a result of heavy-handed downdeclares. No, it's not. It's used commonly, even during even fights (i.e. same number of nations at war). My solution of two defensive war slots and limited aid helps alleviate any of your concerns. A better idea in my opinion would be to restrict infra purchases from the moment you declare. I don't see how this helps at all. It doesn't address turtling, and I have not seen a big issue with people buying infra during wars.
- Massively disparate wars are again something that AW perpetuate. OK - then you should be happy to see my proposals to curb these issues!
- Dirty ops are used at the discretion of the alliance in question. Can you please focus the conversation on game mechanics rather than politics? Thanks!
- Keeping foreign aid to some extent would be nice but with the very large amount that has been permitted for this round it would only really be viable to retain for the purpose of rebuilds with a much larger cap on the amount sent This doesn't make much sense - why would "much" more than $50m be need from a single aid packet for rebuilding?
- You can prevent selling infra below 1000 but if your infra is blown up beyond 1000 that doesn't stop someone from turtling. Preventing people selling infra past 1000 only addresses the "non-playing bank" issue Yep. It's meant to avoid the non-playing bank hiding from war. My position is aid SHOULD stay - it's been a massive benefit to the round and made things far dynamic. Infra bill is approx. $100k at 1,500 infra. Obviously, 1k infra is even less. Cutting $75k isn't going to get anybody "back in the game."
- As for "mules"? Again, only an issue because of the amount of aid that is permitted. OK. What's your point?
If you want the aid mechanic to remain? Yes. Instead of outlining the numerous ways people are besting you with the mechanic with the parameters as they currently stand for the use of it? Nobody's "besting us" using the mechanic. They're taking advantage of the game administrator being willing to intervene once and only once to ban one alliance from farming aid and allow it for another. People are naturally going to point that out. That won't be an issue next round as we'll all understand the rules going in. Instead you might be better off presenting a well thought out proposal for how the aid mechanic might be better implemented in TE for future rounds Like I just did? To which you responded with a bunch of political rants? and how much of a cap should be in place for "non-playing banks" to be inefficent to utilise and ultimately too time-consuming to bother using Not possible - any amount of aid makes non-playing banks worth it in TE. Like many other things, this issue is best handled with a rule, not with mechanics. This is not at all unusual for CN. We didn't get rid of the 'declare war' mechanic to eliminate slot filling, we just banned slot filling., but for the aid mechanic to still be a helpful enough for rebuilds or for smaller alliances with 10 or less member (like mine) to be able to stand their ground long enough against larger alliances of 20-30 people by either receiving some support from a member of their own alliance or externally from a non-hostile alliance.
All I'm seeing here are a list of things your strategy fails to address and the ways in which you have been bested. Would you be saying the same if I complained that our enemies endlessly slot filled? Of course you would, because you're JA. Turtling profitability and non-playing nations joining to farm aid out of reach of reprisal are issues that any reasonable person can acknowledge. It isn't "besting" someone to park a bunch of nations at 25 NS to have them send unlimited aid. It isn't "besting" someone to just roll over and rebuild stronger. It isn't always a faulty mechanic that is utilised unfairly against you, sometimes it actually is a skill issue. Sometimes it actually is bad game mechanics. If you could get over your seething anger against AW, we could probably have a rational argument on the issues.
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We had some interesting conversations on Discord today that I think deserve to be discussed on the forums.
I think it's essential that the game tweak mechanics to address turtling. It's become the single largest factor in making this game boring. Because of the way game mechanics are designed, you can turtle, back-collect, and end up stronger than before.
My assertion is simple: we cannot have a game where 'turtling' (or refusing to fight in good faith) is profitable.
I understand the desire to allow for easy rebuilds, too. So, I propose the following:
1) DAs destroy 12% of cash up to $9 million (instead of $600k), with a threshold of $32m, after which it destroys only $250k.
->This preserves the ability to 'survive to fight another day', while discouraging turtling with large sums of cash.
Recognizing that this makes DAs quite powerful, and that DAs do not only occur when turtling, we can mitigate some of that with the following tweaks (I'm open to other suggestions):
2) Only two defensive war-slots per nation (this also helps significantly with game balance.)
3) DAs cannot happen before noon game time (to prevent nuke + DA at update).
4) Keep some level of foreign aid (to allow folks to collaborate on rebuilds.) The level of aid should probably be lowered to 1,000-1,500 tech; $20-25 million.
5) Prevent selling infra to below 1,000
I also think an additional important rule change would be to outlaw "mules" (in the same way that we have rules against slot filling, declaring wars on teammates, etc.) Whether that's a nation creating, sitting for 14 days, sending cash and rerolling, or it's nations building up, collecting, selling off and sending aid - it's against the spirit of fair gameplay.
Taken in total, I believe these tweaks would resolve many aspects that make CN:TE Warfare boring today:
-Reduce turtling
-Eliminate massively disparate wars (3v1's)
-Eliminate banks
-Allow for a broader range of gameplay ("dirty ops" become acceptable because there's less turtling and foreign aid helps prevent nations from becoming bill-locked.)
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I think we deserve at least one round with foreign aid enabled where everybody knows the ground rules to start and no changes are made in-round. We haven't even seen a fair experiment yet.
I could see lowering the tech caps to, say, 1,500 tech and perhaps reducing the number of aid slots to 4 or 3. Besides that, I think we ought to at least let a fair round play out before we make any decisions on the long-term feasibility of aid in TE or significantly "nerf" them.
The game has become significantly more dynamic. We have more players, less fear of using the full range of warfare tools ('dirty ops') because full bill lock is much less of a concern. It adds another element to TE, which had become stale and had fewer and fewer players each round.
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2 hours ago, King Cyan said:
If you're so clear on it why not give an exact answer as to the date? You seem to be avoiding the question, much like AA dodging Pandy. Maybe someone dropped the ball or there are other forces at work!This sounds like a serious accusation fiwinwine... are you saying we started as one alliance before the round even began?
You're really bad at this.
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50 minutes ago, Johnny Apocalypse said:
OP is 26 people. You have simply made enemies of Knights and Boognish Cult by considering us such. You have made no effort to try and pitch things another way, no diplomatic approaches or anything like that. Just paranoid belligerence toward both Knights and Boognish Cult which culminated in you attacking us both along with OP.
You are decrying a problem that your alliance created, one which you still refuse to try and address and insult both Knights and Boognish Cult by denying our existence as sovereign entities. Much like Alex being stuck in Nuke Anarchy unable to hit OP when they attacked? It is a self-made problem, yet you act like it is everyone else's fault.
OP as an AA alone is 33 people. They were 37 a few days ago. Perhaps some of those nations moved to the other AAs that, combined, comprise the approx. 60-person alliance that is OP.
Our alliance certainly did not 'create' the decision by admin to delete one set of banks and allow another set to exist. We also did not "create" the truce you operated on for the month preceding our attacks on you, wherein you collaborated to attack us whilst not attacking one another, operating as one monolithic alliance.
It is also not Alex's fault that Boog decided to not abide by their terms. Again, and I cannot emphasize this enough, you are not the victim. It is indeed your fault that the war with Cham occurred. It is not our fault, as we did not violate the terms of the agreement. You did.
Boognish Cult is not a sovereign entity btw. That part's not even up for dispute.
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12 minutes ago, Johnny Apocalypse said:
gestures wildly at your previous posts
Yeah I'm playing the victim, smh. I'm merely pointing out that your continued war against him was unnecessary and could have been wrapped up easier. Then he wouldn't be taking up your war slots and using up resources seeing as you currently have bigger fish to fry
And if you hadn't insisted on playing games, it WOULD have wrapped up earlier.
The resources needed are pretty irrelevant. OP has banks, we don't. OP is 60 people, we're 30. OP's had breaks from war, we haven't. While everyone would agree the players in AW are more skilled, this is a game where skill can't make up for that sort of deficit.
Disable Foreign Aid altogether
in Tournament Edition Suggestions
Posted
Turtle mechanics don't exist in SE. SE came before TE.
If the issues were created for TE, they can easily be fixed for TE.